STACk 


pie,  pointed,  clear,  and  candid 
jld  be  widely  circulated.". 

— Hew  York  Times. 


price,  2  C 


"No  man  need  be  financially  learned 
to  understand  what  It  says." 
— Evening  News,  Saginaw,  Mich. 


OR 


"  '  Dollars  or  What'  is  by  far  the  best 
thing  that  has   been   published   on  the 
sound  money  side  of  the  question." 
— Editor  Cincinnati  Timos-Star. 


O 


WHAT? 


BY  W.  B.  MITCHELL. 


Mr 


HOOKER,  GA.,  July  23,  1896. 
W.  B.  MITCHELL: 

Dear  Sir  — I  want  to  thank  you  for  writing  "Dollars  or  What."  It  is  the  only 
thing  I  have  seen  that  we  farmers  can  understand.  *  '  '  It  has  converted  nearly  all 
of  my  free  silver  neighbors  who  have  read  it.  I  am  still  passing  it  around.  *  *  The 
book  I  have  Is  nearly  worn  out  and  I  want  another  ccpy.  '  '  '  Everybody  can  under- 
derstand  it  as  easily  as  a  primer."  J.  WESLEY  SMITH. 


Published  by  H.  C.  ADLER,  Chattanooga,  Tenn. 


A  Bright  and  Breezy  Pamphlet. 


A  strong  and  very  readable  argument  against  the 
free  coinage  of  silver  is  to  be  found  in  a  pamphlet 
entitled  "  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT,"  written  by  W.  B. 
Mitchell,  president  of  the  Third  National  Bank  of 
Chattanooga,  Tenn.  Mr.  Mitchell  is  the  master  of  a 
sharp  pen  and  lucid  style.  There  is  not  in  his 
pamphlet  a  dull  page  or  an  obscure  sentence.  In 
saying  this,  we  give  it  high  praise,  for  writers  on 
financial  matters  are  too  apt  to  forget  that  the  cur- 
rency is  a  ponderous  subject  and  that  in  handling 
it  they  must  take  special  pains  to  be  interesting  if 
they  are  to  make  an  impression  on  the  popular  mind. 

Mr.  Mitchell's  arguments  against  silver  are  devel- 
oped in  a  breezy,  Western  way,  with  a  manifest 
intention  to  hit  hard,  tempered  by  an  honest  pur- 
pose to  fight  fairly.  He  make  no  assertions  in 
which  he  does  not  sincerely  believe,  and  is  always 
willing  to  do  justice  to  the  pleas  of  his  opponents. 
We  welcome  his  brochure  as  a  valuable  contribu- 
tion to  the  discussion  of  the  silver  question  from  an 
honest  money  point  of  view. 

— J.  H.  Holmes,  Editor  Boston  (Mass.)  Herald,  April  3, 1895- 


DOLLARS, 


OR,  WHAT? 


ieb  10  Silbtr  as 


By  W.  B.  MITCHELL. 


NEWSPAPERS  AT  LIBERTY  TO  QUOTE  FREELY,   IF  CREDIT  IS  GIVEN. 


TIME  SPRINT,  CHATTANOOGA.  TEN  N. 


COPYRIGHTED,  1895,  BY  W.  8.  MITCHELL. 


The  articles  in  the  following  pages  are,  many  of  them, 
particularly  suitable  on  account  of  brevity,  for  newspaper 
clipping  and  quotation.  It  was  the  writer's  purpose  to 
make  them  acceptable  to  the  general  reader  by  reason  of 
simplicity  of  statement  as  well  as  brevity.  He  trusts  that 
enough  merit  may  be  found  in  them  to  induce  liberal  quo- 
tations, which  all  journals  are  at  liberty  to  make,  if  credit 
is  given  for  same,  it  being  through  this  source  partly  that 
he-  has  hoped  to  reach  the  masses  with  the  sound  doctrines 
he  endeavors  to  teach.  And 


tbe  IRewspapers  of  the  Xanb 

THIS  LITTLE  WORK  IS 


2(303523 


PREFACE. 


has  occurred  to  the  author  of  the  following  pages  that  nearly  all 
writers  on  financial  questions  assume  that  readers  generally  under- 
stand the  salient  principles  of  finance  and  banking,  and  they 
therefore  fail  to  reach  the  understanding  of  the  masses.  And 
though  these  principles  are  few,  and  not  mysterious,  many  of  our 
most  intelligent  and  capable  men,  particularly  in  professional  life,  have  given 
scant  attention  to  such  matters;  and  many  men  of  abundant  sense  in  agricul- 
tural and  other  pursuits  have  had  little  opportunity  to  study  them.  With  the 
view  of  appealing  to  these  good  citizens,  who  are  always  desirous  of  forming 
correct  opinions  on  important  public  issues,  but  who  have  not  the  time  nor  pos- 
sibly the  patience  to  carefully  wade  through  conflicting  newspaper  comments 
and  reports,  the  author  has  written  a  number  of  short  articles  on  the  most  im- 
portant question  that  has  come  before  the  American  people  since  the  days  of 
slavery.  He  has  not  gone  extensively  into  statistics,  nor  into  a  scientific  dis- 
cussion of  the  subjects  he  handles,  but  has  merely  grouped  a  few  simple  facts 
and  principles  and  presented  them  in  a  plain,  direct  manner ;  such  as  will,  he 
trusts,  make  them  understood  by  all  who  may  read  them.  He  appeals  directly 
to  the  common  sense  of  the  people.  He  does  not  believe  the  financial  question 
a  complicated  or  a  difficult  one,  as  it  is  generally  supposed  to  be;  but  on  the 
contrary,  quite  understandable  and  easy  of  solution  if  the  people  were  agreed  on 
the  main  issue;  and  he  attempts  in  plain  language  to  make  it  as  plain  to  others 
as  it  appears  to  him. 

Although  a  banker,  where  he  owns  one  dollar  in  bank  stock  he  owns  ten 
dollars  in  other  property.  Pie  believes  that  a  bank  cannot  prosper  unless  the 
customers  and  the  community  prosper,  and  that  the  prosperity  of  these  depends 
upon  the  prosperity  of  the  country  as  a  whole;  but  if  it  were  possible  that  the 
prosperity  of  the  bank  he  manages  lay  in  one  direction  and  the  prosperity  of 
the  people  and  the  country  lay  in  another  direction,  his  self-interest  would 
oblige  and  compel  him  to  go  with  the  people  and  the  country.  He  therefore 
speaks,  not  as  a  banker,  but  as  an  American  citizen.  He  speaks,  also,  as  a 
Southern  man,  concerned  for  the  future  of  the  South.  He  believes  that  the 
South  has  a  great  future  under  right  conditions.  He  believes  that  the  agitation 


of  free  silver  is  a  blight  upon  the  South,  and  that  its  industries  and  enterprises 
must,  in  a  measure,  await  the  settlement  of  the  free  coinage  issue. 

The  chief  and  only  serious  plea  the  free  silver  advocates  make  for  the  favor 
of  voters  is  that  "demonetization"  of  silver  has  been  the  cause  of  the  steady 
decline  in  most  values  since  1873,  and  that  its  free  coinage  would  restore  values 
and  advance  silver  to  the  prices  of  former  years.  Particular  care  is  taken  in 
the  following  pages  to  show  the  error  of  this  view. 

An  effort  is  also  made  to  show  the  danger  of  inflation  in  any  form,  and 
that  stability  and  confidence  are  the  basis  of  all  prosperity. 

Statistics  given  are  taken  from  the  1894  United  States  government  reports, 
unless  otherwise  specified,  approximate  figures  being  generally  used. 

Certain  repetition  is  used  in  some  intancess,  with  the  view  of  making  each 
article  more  forcible  and  a  more  complete  argument  within  itself,  the  writer 
believing  that  short  articles  are  more  likely  to  be  read  and  understood  than  any 
long  and  continuous  exposition  of  the  questions  involved.  The  writer  appeals 
witli  earnest  purpose  to  the  voter,  and  begs  a  careful,  thoughtful  reading  of 
what  he  -ay>.  We  all  live  in  the  same  country,  and  our  interests  in  this  matter 
are  the  same.  If  calamity  befalls  us,  none  can  dodge  its  shadow  ;  if  prosperity 
smiles  upon  us,  all  alike  are  filled  with  gladness. 

W.  B.  MITCHELL. 

Chattanooga,  Tenn.,  April  16th,  1895. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

1 — Voters  Right  Minded ... 7 

2 — The  Financial  Question 8 

3 — Divisions  of  Sentiment.. 10 

4 — The  Government  Stamp  on  Money 12 

5 — Difference  Between  Demand  and  Time  Obligations 15 

6 — A  Double  Monetary  Standard  16 

7 — Inconsistency  of  Free  Coinage  Advocates 17 

8 — Volume  of  Money  Needed 19 

9 — Issuing  Paper  Against  Silver 21 

10 — "Discrimination"  Against  Silver 23 

11 — "Demonetization"  of  Silver 24 

12— "The  Appreciation"  of  Gold 25 

13— Gold  the  "Money  of  the  People" ! 27 

14 — The  General  Decline  in  Prices 30 

15— Old  Time  Prices 32 

16— Silver  and  Wheat 33 

17— Silver  and   Coffee 35 

18— Silver,  Wheat  and  Coffee .  35 

19— Silver  and  Cotton 36 

20— Silver  in  France 37 

21 — Free  Coinage  in  Mexico 38 

22 — Train  Loads  of  Silver 39 

23— Gold  and  Silver  Production 41 

24 — Fluctuations  in  the  Silver  Dollar 43 

25— The  Eatio  Between  Gold  and  Silver 45 

26— Exports  of  Silver 48 

27— Obstacles  in  the  Way  of  Free  Silver 48 

28— Do  We  Want  Bimetalism 50 

29— Free  Silver  Not  Free  Distribution.. 54 

30 — Gold  Standard  and  Prosperity 55 

31— The  Losses  of  1893 58 

32— The  "Money  Power" 60 

33— "Privileges"  of  National  Banks 63 

34 — Bank  Note  Circulation 65 

35 — Our  Indebtedness  Abroad 67 

36 — How  to  Get  More  Money 69 

37— "Coin's  Financial  School" 71 

38— The  Rise  in  Coal  Oil  (and  Beef 76 

39— "Coin's"  Unit  of  Value 77 

40— "Coin's"  Unlimited  Demand 78 

41— "Coin's"  Fatal  Admission 79 

42— The  Danger  of  "Coin's"  Logic  80 

43- The  "Silver  Bug" 83 

44— Out  of  the  Frying  Pan  Into  the  Fire 84 

45 — International  Bimetalism 85 

46— "Friends"  of  the  People 87 

47 — Sound  Money  Clubs 88 

48— A  Word  to  the  East 89 

49 — Present  General  Condition 91 

50— Which  Do  You  Prefer?....  94 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 


VOTERS  RIGHT  MINDED. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  charge  that  all  the  free  silver  people 
an-  fanatics,  lunatics  and  repudiationists.  A  misiai- 
great  as  it  is  To  say  that  sound  money  men  are  "conspira- 
"  anil  "gold  bugs."  Many  of  them  are  among  our  most 
useful  and  intelligent  citizens,  and  are  perfectly  horn-si 
ami  patriotic.  They  have  not  seriously  studied  the  merits 
of  the  doctrines  they  embrace,  but  they  are  as  anxious  as 
any  of  us  to  do  the  right  thing  and  put  the  country  in  the 
way  of  prosperity.  They  are  open  to  argument  and  to 
conviction.  They  somehow  have  an  idea  that  there  is  a 
"conspiracy"  to  drive  out  silver  and  to  "contract''  the 
currency.  The  metal  has  been  "demonetized,"  and  that 
to  t  hem  is  an  ominous  and  misleading  word.  They  do  not 
know  ihat  much  more  silver  has  been  coined  and  circu- 
lated since  the  alleged  "demonetization"  than  before,  and 
that  we  have  fully  seven  times  as  much  now  as  in  1873. 
Tliey  do  not  understand  that  free  silver  means  the  driv- 
ing out  of  gold,  and  leaving  silver  and  paper  only  as 
money.  They  do  not  understand  that  such  calamity  would 
suddenly  contract  the  currency  more  than  if  all  the  silver 
in  the  country  were  dumped  into  the  sea.  Their  feelings 
and  their  sentiments  have  been  played  upon  by  dema- 
gogues, and  it  is  these  men  who  deserve  the  severest  con- 
demnation. Most  of  these  have  had  opportunities  of  infor- 
mation, and  know  the  falsity  of  their  statements.  But 
their  business  is  politics.  They  are  after  fat  berths  in 
government  service.  They  are.  or  want  to  be  Congress- 
men and  Senators,  at  salaries  they  could  not  earn  at 
home,  even  if  they  were  willing  to  work.  They  deceive 
and  misrepresent  for  a  selfish  purpose.  It  pays  them  in 
dollars  ami  cents  to  do  it.  Some  of  them  are  high  in  party 
and  national  councils,  and  the  people,  respecting  high 
station,  have  learned  t<>  respect  them  and  to  be  guided 
by  them.  What  is  here  said  does  not  apply  to  all  free 
silver  politicians,  nor  to  all  politicians  of  any  parly  or 
faction,  but,  as  must  be  owned,  it  applies  truthfully  to 
the  great  majority  of  them.  A  ml  the  free  silver  advocates 
are  now  making  moiv  false  statements,  and  doing  more 


8  DOLLAKS,  OR  WHAT? 

mischief  than  any  other  class  of  office  seekers.  And  there 
is  but  one  way  to  checkmate  them.  That  is  to  give  the 
people  the  facts  in  such  way  that  they  may  be  under- 
stood. When  this  is  well  done  the  day  of  the  free  coinage 
trickster  is  done. 

The  road  to  financial  ruin  will  not  be  followed  when 
the  sign-boards  are  well  posted.  Sensible  men — and  most 
voters  are  sensible — do  not  rush  into  pitfalls  when  the 
marks  are  clear.  These  can,  and  should  be  made  clear  as 
day. 


THE  FINANCIAL  QUESTION, 

The  money  question  is  now  the  most  vital  issue  in 
American  politics,  and  it  is  one  on  which  the  demagogue 
can  get  in  his  most  effective  work.  He  needs  no  experi- 
ence, practical  ability,  nor  brains,  to  belabor  the  "gold 
bugs,"  and  the  "money  power,"  and  to  talk  about  the 
"dollar  of  our  daddies,"  and  the  "money  of  the  constitu- 
tion." 

Whether  he  be  a  brilliant  but  deluded  theorist,  a 
shrewd  and  designing  owrner  of  Western  silver  mines,  or 
a  cheap  politician  who  takes  the  shortest  cut  to  get  votes, 
he  is  a  dangerous  agitator,  because  he  appeals  to  popular, 
though  mistaken,  prejudices. 

A  combination  of  adverse  causes  and  conditions  de- 
pressed values  and  trade  throughout  the  world,  and  the 
fear  of  a  silver  basis  has  intensified  that  depression  in 
America.  The  free  silver  advocate,  if  he  be  a  misguided 
theorist,  believes,  and  if  he  be  a  silver  mine  owner  or  a 
mere  demagogue,  pretends  to  believe,  that  these  condi- 
tions are  the  direct  result  of  what  he  calls  "demonetiza- 
tion" of  silver.  He  attributes  all  legislation  "unfriendly" 
to  silver,  the  world  over,  to  the  "gold  bugs,"  thus  appeal- 
ing to  the  prejudice  of  those  who  do  not  think  and  reason 
for  themselves.  His  false  doctrines  are  the  more  readily 
accepted  because  the  government  itself,  first  from  sup- 
posed necessity  during  the  rebellion,  and  since  under  the 
direction  of  unwise  and  compromising  politicians,  has 
upheld  the  vicious  theory  of  fiat  money  and  inflation.  It 
first  became  a  bank  of  issue,  and  undertook  to  furnish 
the  people  with  fiat  paper  money,  and  then  for  purposes 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  9 

of  individual  gain  it  was  saddled  with  the  product  of  the 
W< -stern  silver  mines,  and  soon  began. to  issue  fiat  silver, 
continuing  this  dangerous  experiment  till  the  world  be- 
iMii  HI  doubt  its  solvency,  and  gave  its  strange  system 
and  money  the  cold  shoulder.  Foreign  investors  began  to 
withdraw  from  the  country,  and  the  panic  of  1893  was 
the  result.  The  Sherman  law  was  repealed,  and  the  issue 
<»f  tiat  money  was  stopped.  But  the  weakness  and  folly 
of  our  financial  system  had  been  laid  bare,  and  recovery 
was  slow.  Our  slender  gold  reserve,  which  supported 
our  great  volume  of  fiat  money,  and  our  thousands  of 
millions  of  credits  of  all  kinds,  was  in  evident  danger. 
Tlic  danger  was  intensified  when  the  Fifty-Third  Con- 
gress— an  incompetent,  free  silver  body — assembled.  And 
during  the  existence  of  that  Congress  the  country  was 
kept  in  a  state  of  feverish  anxiety  and  uncertainty. 

It  is  a  matter  of  great  concern  to  us  all  that  we  get 
back  to  a  safe  and  sensible  financial  policy.  Whether  we 
toil  at  the  desk  or  in  the  workshop,  behind  the  counter  or 
on  the  farm,  we  are  each  and  all  directly  concerned  in 
having  a  stable  financial  system,  in  the  permanency  and 
safety  of  which  we,  and  outsiders,  have  absolute  faith. 

We  want  to  be  paid  for  our  labor  in  good  money,  which 
we  i  an  put  by  with  confidence.  If  we  buy  anything  with 
it  we  want  the  full  worth  of  good  money;  if  we  put  it  at 
interest,  put  it  in  the  bank,  or  invest  it  in  securities  or 
life  insurance,  \ve  do  not  want  it  returned  to  us  or  to  our 
families  at  a  discount.  We  want  to  make  safe,  and  not 
speculative  investments  with  our  savings.  We  earn  good 
dollars,  and  we  do  not  want  to  see  them  depreciate  and 
become  bad  dollars,  whether  in  our  own  or  in  other 
hands.  We  lock  up  a  hundred  cents,  or  we  put  out  a  hun- 
dred cents,  and  we  want  it  to  remain  a  hundred  cents. 
\\'e  do  not  want  it  to  shrink  to  seventy-five  cents  or  to 
fifty  cents  while  we  are  about  our  work  or  our  business. 
\\V  do  not  want  to  go  io  tied  at  night  with  a  dollar  and 
.uet  iij»  in  the  morning  with  less  than  a  dollar.  We  do 
not  want  an  uncertain  or  a  fluctuating  currency.  If  we 
are  wise  we  want  the  standard  of  all  great  civilized  na- 
tions. 

We  li;  d  investments  to  offer.  We  have  a  new 

country  with  great  natural  resources.  We  want  the  con- 
fidence of  people  all  over  the  world — want  their  brains 
and  enterprise  and  money  to  aid  in  developing  these 


10 


DOLLARS,  UK    WHAT? 


resources.  We  have  now,  in  a  measure,  lost  that  confi- 
dence, and  can  obtain  it  again  only  by  manifesting  the 
clearest  purpose  of  future  integrity  in  our  national 
finances.  If  we  tend  an  ear  to  the  delusive  harangues  of 
the  free  silver  advocate,  it  is  hopelessly  gone  from  us. 

We  of  the  South  in  particular ,are  vitally  concerned  in 
a  financial  policy  that  will  insure  the  confidence  of  every- 
body. AVe  have  the  richest  undeveloped  section  of  the 
country.  The  eyes  of  investors  everywhere  are  turned 
toward  us.  Give  the  country  safe  financial  legislation 
and  within  ten  years  the  idle  accumulation  of  money  of 
the  East  and  of  other  countries  would  come  to  us  by  the 
hundreds  of  millions.  But  give  us  free  coinage  of  silver 
and  we  shall  invite  the  ridicule  and  contempt  of  the  civ- 
ilized world.  We  should  take  a  backward  step  of  half  a 
century  in  our  industrial  growth.  Under  such  condition 
there  would  be  no  hope  at  all  for  the  present  generation 
in  the  South.  The  East,  writh  its  generations  of  savings 
and  large  accumulations,  might,  in  a  way,  survive  such  a 
calamity,  largely,  too,  at  our  cost;  but  we  should  flounder 
in  poverty. 

Without  regard  to  political  ties  or  associations,  let  us 
of  the  South,  aye,  and  of  the  North,  and  the  East,  rise  and 
stand  together  against  this  proposed  and  monstrous  blun- 
der. Let  us  make  it  clear  that  no  man,  of  any  party,  can 
have  our  votes  unless  he  squarely  defines  himself  for  hon- 
est money  and  honest  financial  legislation. 


DIVISIONS  OF  SENTIMENT. 

Bimetallism  means  the  use  of  both  gold  and  silver  as 
money.  It  does  not  necessarily  mean  a  double  standard, 
which  is  an  impossibility,  unless  an  equal  intrinsic  mar- 
ketable value  of  metal  is  put  in  each  kind  of  dollar.  That 
is,  100  cents'  worth  of  marketable  gold  in  the  gold  dollar 
and  100  cents'  worth  of  marketable  silver  in  the  silver 
dollar.  This  would  make  a  double  standard,  but  to  remain 
so  there  must  be  no  fluctuation  in  the  market  value  of 
either  metal. 

The  use  of  gold  alone  as  a  money  metal  is  gold  mono- 
metallism. 

The  use  of  silver  alone  is  silver  monometallism. 


DOLLARS,  OK  WHAT?  11 

The  silver  mining  states  of  the  West  want  and  have 
long  been  striving  for  silver  monometallism. 

The  remainder  of  the  free  silver  people  want  bimetal- 
lism. 

The  distinction  is  vital,  but  not  generally  understood, 
or  recognized. 

There  is  really  wider  difference  of  real  sentiment  be- 
t  \\  een  the  mining  camps  of  the  West  and  the  silver  people 
of  other  sections  than  there  is  between  the  latter  and 
the  sound  money  men. 

Silver  men  east  of  tin'  Mississippi  have  no  interest  in 
the  silver  product  as  an  industry,  and  only  desire  to  pro- 
mote its  wider  use  as  money;  but  generally,  unlike  their 
\V< -stern  allies,  they  would  oppose  its  use  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  gold  and  the  great  consequent  reduction  in  the 
volume  of  our  currency. 

They  have  a  mistaken  theory  that  gold  and  silver  can 
both  become  standards  of  money  on  a  basis  of  16  to  1, 
and  it  is  that -theory  for  which  they  are  earnestly  fight- 
ing, in  the  honest  but  erroneous  belief  that  it  would  work 
in  practice  and  restore  old  time  prosperity.  It  is  simply 
a  theory,  because  it  is  an  idea  or  scheme  that  has  never 
been  put  to  the  test.  There  is  no  record  in  history  that 
any  nation  has  attempted  to  make  standards  of  two 
metals  at  a  ratio  of  greatly  different  values. 

The  silver  people  assert  that  free  coinage  would  raise 
the  value  of  silver  to  that  of  gold  on  a  basis  of  16  to  1, 
but  that  is  also  a  mere  theory,  with  everything  against  it 
and  nothing  in  favor  of  it,  excepting  the  bare  assertion, 
and  that,  like  the  other,  is  a  most  dangerous  theory  in 
view  of  the  calamities  its  test  would  precipitate. 

The  sound  money  men  oppose  both  these  theories,  and 
also  oppose  the  scheme  of  the  Western  silverites  to  put 
the  country  on  a  silver  basis,  with  silver  as  the  only  me- 
tallic currency.  They  are  not  gold  rnonoinetallists,  as  is 
n  charged.  There  is  no  public  sentiment  favoring 
gold  monometallism  in  this  country.  They  are  bimetal- 
lists,  differing  from  the  free  coinage  bimet  allisis  in  that 
they  favor  our  present  gold  standard  of  value,  and  desire 
to  keep  all  the  silver  that  can  be  safely  used,  and  all  the 
paper  circulation  as  good  as  gold,  on  which  both  are 
based. 

I'nlike  the  free  coinage  bimetallists,  they  advocate  no 
theories.  They  adhere  to  precedents  and  tried  principles. 


12  DOLLAES,  OR  WHAT? 

They  believe  that  the  experiences  and  practical  financial 
tests  of  other  nations,  at  the  present  day  and  in  former 
periods,  are  a  safe  guide.  They  have  the  record  of  a 
thousand  years  of  financiering,  and  find  no  instance 
where  a  bold  and  generally  distrusted  financial  theory, 
put  to  a  practical  test,  has  not  wrought  disaster.  Al- 
though they  greatly  admire  the  genius  of  young  America, 
and  are  partial  to  some  of  her  statesmen,  they  are  unwill 
ing  to  follow  the  lead  of  men  who  would  make  such  radi- 
cal departure  from  all  known  and  tried  methods  of  finan- 
ciering. 

The  writer  believes  this  to  be  a  true  and  candid  state- 
ment of  three  important  divisions  of  sentiment  on  the 
financial  question. 

Is  the  reader  a  bimetallist  of  the  theoretical  school?  Is 
he  a  bimetallist  of  the  practical  school?  Or  is  he  a  silver 
monometallist  of  the  school  of  the  mining  camps? 

If  he  is  a  bimetallist  of  the  theoretical  school,  there  is 
great  hope  that  he  may  join  the  practical  school.  It  is 
assumed  that  he  is  a  sensible,  right  thinking  man,  earn- 
est in  right  purposes,  really  afraid  of  mere  theories;  and 
if  he  will  take  the  pains  to  investigate  this  important 
matter  he  can  ascertain  that  his  present  views  AEE  the- 
oretical to  the  extent  that  they  have  never  been  tried  by 
ANY  nation  that  history  makes  mention  of. 

!£,  however,  he  belongs  to  the  school  of  the  mining 
camps,  there  is  little  hope  of  him.  They  have  silver  to 
sell  out  there,  and  the  only  lessons  taught  are  how  to  sell 
it.  This  is  a  selfish  doctrine,  and  the  man  who  embraces 
it  is  hard  to  reach.  There  are  a  few  politicians  east  of 
the  Mississippi  who  belong  to  this  school,  but  they  have 
outlived  their  day  and  usefulness. 


THE  GOVERNMENT  STAMP  ON  MONEY. 

It  is  a  popular  error  of  free  coinage  people,  and  other 
advocates  of  fiat  money,  that  the  stamp  of  the  government 
makes  money  perfectly  good.  This  false  idea  is  at  the 
bottom  of  most  inflation  theories. 

The  United  States,  or  any  other  government,  might 
stamp  a  dollar  mark  on  a  paper  bill  and  it  would  not  pass 
for  5  cents,  nor  for  1  cent,  if  the  bill  were  drawn  without 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  13 

any  promise  to  pay.  This  is  a  simple  fact,  not  at  all  un- 
derstood by  many  intelligent  people. 

There  must  be  a  promise  of  final  redemption,  accept- 
ance for  customs,  or  other  substantial  promise  to  pay, 
and  its  value,  as  money,  depends  entirely  on  the  kind  of 
payment  promised,  and  on  the  solvency  and  ability  of  the 
government  or  institution  issuing  the  bill.  In  Mexico, 
or  any  other  country  on  a  silver  basis,  the  promise  to  pay 
would  be  in  silver,  and  the  bill,  therefore,  granting  the 
solvency  and  promptness  of  the  maker,  would  be  worth  a 
Mexican  silver  dollar,  about  fifty  cents  of  our  money. 

In  the  United  States  the  promise  to  pay  on  such  bill 
means  payment  in  gold,  because  the  United  States  main- 
tains a  supply  of  gold  for  the  special  purpose  of  paying 
any  of  these  bills  that  may  be  presented. 

Another  mistaken  idea  of  many  uninformed  people  is 
that  the  government  issues  these  bills,  and  that  they  pass 
from  hand  to  hand  indefinitely,  and  nobody  ever  asks  to 
have  them  redeemed. 

The  fact  is  that  the  government  is  often  called  on  for 
the  redemption  of  its  bills.  This  has  been  made  quite 
clear  and  become  pretty  generally  understood  during  th'> 
past  two  years.  Business  men  require  gold  for  commer- 
cial purposes,  and  when  it  suits  their  convenience  thev 
exchange  their  paper  money  for  it.  But  if  such  exchange 
seldom,  or  never,  actually  occurred,  the  fact  that  it  could 
at  any  time  be  made  would  make  the  paper  money  as 
good  as  gold. 

A  man  may  have  $100  to  his  credit  in  bank,  and  let  it 
remain  there  year  after  year,  because  he  does  not  need  it, 
and  believes  if  he  should  need  it  he  could  go  to  the  bank 
and  get  it 

Under  our  system  the  government  represents  the  bank, 
and  the  holder  of  any  bill,  or  piece  of  money  other  than 
gold,  represents  the  depositor,  and  the  bill  or  money  h<- 
holds  is  a  certificate  of  deposit.  As  long  as  he  can  go  to 
the  government  bank  and  get  this  certificate  cashed,  lie 
is  satisfied  to  hold  it;  or  the  man  he  owes,  or  deals  with, 
willingly  accepts  it.  In  other  words,  if  the  government 
clearly  shows  its  purpose  of  maintaining,  and  its  ability 
to  maintain,  its  gold  reserve  for  redemption  purposes,  no 
large  volume  of  paper,  or  fiat  money,  is  presented  for  re- 
demption. But  if  the  government  wavers  in  that  purpose, 
or  if  it  puts  in  circulation  too  many  promises  to  pay,  either 


14  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

in  paper  dollars  or  in  silver  dollars — if  it  thus  increases 
its  demand  obligations  out  of  proportion  to  the  gold  re- 
demption reserve,  then  people  lose  confidence  in  the  in- 
trinsic value  of  its  dollar  marks  on  paper  and  silver,  and 
large  amounts  of  the  money  are  taken  to  the  treasury 
and  exchanged  for  gold,  as  was  the  case  after  the  passage 
of  the  Sherman  law,  and  notably  in  1893. 

During  the  ten  years  preceding  the  passage  of  the  Sher- 
man act  the  total  withdrawals  of  gold  from  the  treasury, 
in  exchange  for  paper  money,  were  less  than  twenty  mill- 
ions of  dollars;  but  during  the  four  years  the  Sherman 
law  was  in  force  these  withdrawals  of  gold  exceeded  two 
hundred  and  sixty  millions  of  dollars.  Had  that  law  not 
been  repealed  in  1893,  there  would  not  have  been  a. dollar 
of  gold  in  the  treasury  within  six  months,  and  there  would 
soon  have  been  none  in  the  country.  We  should  have 
wholly  lost  more  than  one-third  of  the  money  in  circula- 
tion, and  the  remaining  two-thirds  would  have  been  on  a 
silver  basis,  possessing  only  one-half  its  former  purchas- 
ing value. 

The  United  States  has  no  more  immunity  from  distrust, 
if  it  manages  its  finances  badly,  than  an  individual  or  a 
corporate  institution.  If  conducted  on  unsound  princi- 
ples, its  treasury  is  as  liable  to  a  run  as  a  bank.  •  If  people 
have  paper  bills  with  dollar  marks  on  them,  for  which 
they  can  get  gold  today  but  may  not  be  able  to  get  it  to- 
morrow, they  are  apt  to  make  the  exchange  today.  If 
they  have  silver  pieces  worth  really  only  50  cents,  but 
which,  by  reason  of  the  government  stamp,  and  promise, 
they  can  now  convert  into  gold,  but  may  not  be  able  .to 
do  so  to-morrow  or  next  week,  they  are  likely  to  convert 
it  now.  And  it  is  not  bankers  only  who  make  the  ex- 
change. 

There  are  to-day  tens  of  millions  of  gold  hoarded  in  the 
stockings  of  the  free  silver  coinage  advocates  of  the 
United  States.  The  writer  knows  a  man  in  his  own  city, 
prominent  in  public  life  and  a  pronounced  free  coinage 
man,  who  in  1893  promptly  converted  his  bank  account 
into  gold  and  locked  it  up.  He  knows  scores  of  other 
strong  free  silver  men  who  did  the  same  thing. 

In  practice  these  people  appear  to  know  the  difference 
between  a  dollar  mark  and  a  real  dollar — between  a  gold 
basis  and  a  silver  basis;  but  in  theory  the  "money  of  the 


"K   WHAT?  15 

Dilution"  is  good  enough  for  anybody,  and  a    gold 
standard  is  infamous. 


DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  DEMAND  AND  TIME 
OBLIGATIONS. 

• 

I  Vrsonx  who  do  not  reason,  and  have  given  small  atten- 
tion to  business  principles  and  financial  matters,  do  not 
-U'nize  the  di  (Terence  between  demand  and  time  obliga- 
tions, particularly  as  applied  to  governmental  affairs. 

They  know  that  the  United  Stales  is  a  grear  and  rich 
country,  and  that  it  is  abundantly  able  to  pay  all  its  debts. 
They  reason  thai  such  a  great  country,  with  such  unlim- 
ited resources,  ran  put  out  unlimited  quantities  of  paper, 
or  depreciated  silver,  and  circulate  them  at  full  face 
value  as  money.  But,  as  stated  elsewhere,  such  money 
must  be  promises  to  pay;  and  to  make  the  promise  good 
-ovei  iinient  must  be  ready  to  pay.  It  must  be  ready 
n.  pay  on  demand.  If  not,  the  promise  means  nothing. 
Its  j  to  pay  must  be  in  something  of  intrinsic  value. 

i.  if  on  a  gold  basis,  and  silver  if  on  a  silver  basis,  and 
this  redemption  money  must  be  in  hand  and  in  sight.  It 
must  be  in  good  proportion  to  the  money  it  puts  in  circu- 
lation.  If  it  is  not,  nobody  has  confidence  in  the  money. 
I5ut  the  ability  of  any  government  to  accumulate  and 
-lock  of  coin  for  such  purpose  is  limited,  and  con- 
sequently its  circulation  of  money  must  be  limited  in  pro- 
portion. 

Time  obligations  are  less  directly  limited.  These  are 
•d  on  the  resources  and  wealth  of  the  country;  on  its 
•:me.  or  possible  revenue.  They  may  be  paid  at  ma- 
turity, or  funded  and  extended  indefinitely.  They  bear 
interest,  and  can  be  tloated  as  long  as  there  is  no  decline 
in  the  resources  of  the  country. 

Demand  obligations,  in  the  form  of  money,  bear  no 
interest,  and  are  therefore  of  uncertain  value,  whether 
issued  by  a  government  or  by  an  authorized  corporation, 
unless  good  on  demand. 

The  I'nited  States  can  tloat  its  10,  1>0  or  30-year  inter- 
est-bearing bonds  in  very  large  sums,  without  injury  to 
^t,  but  floating  money,  payable  on  demand,  and 


16  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

on  which  payment  is  being  constantly  demanded,  is  quite 
a  different  thing. 

The  distinction  is  vital.  There  would  be  less  clamor 
for  flat  money  if  it  were  generally  better  understood. 

An  individual  with  good  resources  may  put  out  |10,000 
of  his  interest-bearing  time  notes  and  carry  such  indebt- 
edness for  years. 

Before  they  mature  he  prudently  arranges  for  renewals, 
«r  places  them  elsewhere.  If  these  obligations  were  pay- 
able on  demand  they  would  be  a  constant  menace,  liable 
to  bankrupt  him  at  any  time. 

Fundamental  principles  of  business  and  finance  arc 
inexorable,  and  apply  relentlessly  alike  to  men  or  nations. 

Any  scheme  to  issue  large  amounts  of  fiat  money  U 
wholly  chimerical.  Wherever  undertaken  the  result  has 
been  failure  and  bankruptcy.  No  people  can  grow  rich 
on  promises  to  pay  that  cannot  be  made  good. 


A  DOUBLE  MONETARY  STANDARD. 

The  only  way  a  double  standard  of  money  can  be  main- 
tained is  to  put  the  same  commercial  value  of  metal  in  the 
coin  of  each  standard.  If  an  actual  dollar's  worth  of  sil- 
ver be  put  in  the  silver  dollar,  and  a  dollar's  worth  of  gold 
in  the  gold  dollar,  then  the  gold  dollar  and  the  silver  dol- 
lar wrill  both  become  standards.  Commercial  laws  will 
make  them  such  without  any  reference  to  legislation. 
Commercial  law  is  superior  to  legislation  in  the  fixing  of 
values. 

It  is  a  wholly  mistaken  and  visionary  theory  that  legis- 
lation (either  by  one  government  or  by  all  the  govern- 
ments in  the  world)  can  make  a  double  standard  of  money, 
or  of  anything  else.  Is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the 
United  States  and  all  Europe  combined  could  pass  laws 
that  would  make  the  prices  of  wheat  and  corn  the  same 
in  the  world's  markets?  And  yet  the  prices  of  these  com- 
modities can  as  easily  be  regulated  as  the  values  of  gold 
and  silver.  If  50  cents  or  75  cents,  or  even  99  cents'  worth 
of  silver  be  put  into  the  silver  dollar,  and  both  the  gold 
dollar  and  the  silver  dollar  are  made  a  legal  tender 
(without  a  gold  redemption  feature),  it  ought  to  be  easy 
enough  to  see  that  people  would  use  the  cheaper  dollar, 


DOLLARS,  OK   WHAT?  17 

and  either  sell  or  hoard  the  dollar  of  greater  intrinsic 
value.  The  silver  dollar  would  be  as  good  as  the  gold 
dollar  to  pay  debts  with,  but  the  gold  dollar  would  sell  in 
the  market  by  weight  for  a  premium.  Therefore,  the 
gold  would  go  out  of  circulation.  It  is  simply  impossible 
••(•]>  two  moneys  of  different  intrinsic  values  both  in 
circulation,  unless  the  cheaper  money  is  made  redeem- 
able in  the  more  valuable  money. 

Ami  an  unlimited  amount  of  cheap  money  cannot  be 
redeemable  in  good  money. 

Up  to  twenty  years  ago  the  ratio  of  value  between  the 
two  metals  had  been  for  about  two  centuries  between 
14  1-2  and  Ki  of  silver  to  1  of  gold.  Running  thus  evenly 
it  was  not  impossible  to  have  a  double  money  standard, 
and  such  standard  did  exist  in  mau3r  countries. 

But  at  times  one  metal  or  the  other  increased  or  de- 
creased  in  value,  and  at  such  times  the  more  valuable  in 
•ry  instance  went  out  of  circulation. 

This  is  the  record  of  history,  and  many  instances  may 
be  cited.  It  is  only  within  comparatively  recent  years 
that  any  country  conceived  the  plan  of  making  the 
cheaper  metal  redeemable  in  or  interchangeable  with  the 
more  valuable  metal.  And  when  silver  began  to  be  so 
abundant,  and  to  decline  so  greatly,  all  countries,  except- 
ing the  1  'nited  States,  abandoned  or  greatly  modified 
that  plan. 


INCONSISTENCY  OF  FREE  COINAGE  ADVOCATES. 

The  worst  inconsistency  of  the  advocate  of  free  coin- 
age is  the  ratio  at  which  lie  insists  silver  must  be  coined. 
lie  wants  it  coined  at  16  to  1.  That  is,  he  would  put  If, 
I  lines  as  much  weight  in  a  silver  dollar  as  is  put  in  a  gold 
dollar.  <  )n  t  his  basis,  before  either  piece  of  metal  is  con- 
verted into  stamped  money,  the  piece  of  gold  would  sell 
in  any  market  in  the  world  for  llll)  cents,  whereas  the 
piece  of  silver  would  bring  but  little  over  .~>0  cents. 

It  is  clear  that  the  silver  ."iO-ceni  piece  must  be  made 
by  law  interchangeable  with  and  practically  redeemable 
by  the  government  in  the  full  value  gold  dollar;  other- 
wise the  two  dollars  would  not  circulate  side  by  side.  Yet 
this  silver  theorist  rails  at  the  government  for  keeping  a 


18  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

gold  reserve  to  make  this  50-cent  silver  money  pass  for 
100  cents. 

If  silver  advocates  want  to  coin  all  the  silver  in  the 
world  why  do  they  not  propose  to  put  100  cents'  worth  of 
silver  into  the  silver  dollar?  It  would  then  stand  alone, 
and  until  silver  declined  they  could,  without  disturbance, 
give  the  metal  the  "wide  use"  to  which  they  claim  it  is 
entitled. 

The  writer  does  not  believe  in  nor  advocate  the  prac- 
ticability of  this  policy,  but  speaks  from  the  silver  stand- 
point. And  such  policy  would  be  more  honest,  and  some 
what  less  dangerous  than  the  plan  proposed,  though  it 
would  doubtless  soon  result  in  the  disasters  of  the  Sher- 
man law. 

In  former  ages  and  periods  silver  was  in  great  request 
as  a  money  medium,  because  the  supply  was  very  limited. 
But  modern  discoveries,  appliances  and  inventions  have 
so  increased  and  cheapened  the  product  that  it  is  fast 
ceasing  to  be  of  value  as  a  money  metal.  While  in  former 
ages  it  was  turned  out  by  the  pound,  it  is  now  turned  out 
by  the  ton  and  by  the  ship  load.  At  one  period  of  the 
world  copper  was  used  as  money,  and  would  doubtless 
have  continued  in  use  to  the  present  day  but  for  the  fact 
that  it  became  so  abundant  that  it  ceased  to  be  a  precious 
metal. 

It  is  not  easy  for  people  now  to  accept  the  idea  that 
silver  may  for  the  same  reason  eventually  cease  to  be 
useful  for  monetary  purposes.  That  time  has  not  yet, 
and  may  never  come,  but  it  cannot  be  said  to  be  a  remote 
possibility. 

It  is  foolish  to  go  on  theorizing  about  the  cause  of  its 
decline,  and  the  methods  that  would  raise  its  value,  when 
it  is  becoming  so  abundant  that  warehouses,  instead  of 
strong  boxes,  must  be  provided  for  its  storage.  The  com- 
mercial law  of  supply  and  demand  regulates  its  price 
exactly  as  it  regulates  the  price  of  every  other  known 
product,  and  it  is  not  within  the  power  of  all  the  legisla- 
tive bodies  in  the  world  to  permanently  and  materially 
raise  or  depress  its  value.  Whether  they  all  "demone- 
tize" or  "remonetize"  makes  in  the  long  run  small  differ- 
ence. The  law  of  supply  and  demand  has  small  respect 
for  the  edicts  of  legislative  solons. 

Happily,  however,  for  other  nations,  and  for  the  gen- 
eral good  of  mankind,  the  United  States  is  the  only  coun- 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  1',) 

try  on  earth  dominated  by  the  mine  operators  of  a  few 
sparsely  settled  stares.  Kngland,  France  and  Germany 
may  have  a  few  visionaries,  but  their  legislative  bodies 
arc  nor  bullied  by  a  powerful  lobby  of  millionaires  with 
train  loads  of  silver  for  sale. 

All  efforts  looking  to  free  coina.gr  bimetallism  by  inter- 
national agreement  are  wasted.  The  credits  of  Europe, 
amounting  to  thousands  of  millions  of  dollars,  are  based 
on  a  safe  and  permanent  standard.  Its  disturbance  would 
result  in  disaster  and  calamity,  such  as  would  shake  to 
the  foundations  every  throne  and  government  on  the  con- 
tinent. No  step  will  be  taken  in  the  direction  of  such 
danger.  And  it  is  probable  that  even  some  of  our  free 
silver  mine  owning  Senators  are  not  quite  so  blind  as  to 
be  unable  to  see  the  folly  of  expecting  any  move  abroad 
in  that  direction.  But  they  will  clamor  all  the  more  for 
renewed  and  enlarged  "recognition"  at  home,  on  a  basis 
of  10  to  1,  for  their  beloved  metal. 


VOLUME  OF  MONEY  NEEDED. 

Owing  to  the  great  number  of  banks,  and  the  system 
of  credits  throughout  the  United  States,  we  need  less 
actual  money  per  capita  than  is  needed  anywhere  else  in 
the  world.  There  are  few  towns  of  five  hundred  popula- 
tion that  have  not  a  bank.  Less  than  5  per  cent,  of  all 
payments  are  made  in  actual  money.  The  bank  check 
does  the  remainder.  A  gives  his  check  to  B;  the  bank 
transfers  A's  credit  to  B's  account,  and  B  checks  in  favor 
of  C,  and  so  on  through  the  alphabet.  This  system  of 
ready  credits  does  the  work  of  a  great  volume  of  money. 
It  is  not  merely  a  convenience,  but  it  increases  profits  in 
prompt  conversion  and  quick  settlements. 

Our  money  per  capita  of  about  si' }  is,  ::nder  our  bank- 
ing system,  equal  to  a  per  capita  of  £100  in  many  coun- 
tries. \\V  can  make  quicker  turns  and  do  more  business 
on  si  actual  money  than  can  be  done  on  s.~>  in  a  country 
that  has  few  banks. 

The  banking  Capital  of  the  Tinted  States  exceeds  one- 
third  of  that  of  all  the  countries  of  Kurope.  It  amounts 
to  $1,400,000,000,  against  s:;,r,n<UMM),iM)0  in  Kurope. 

The  proportion  of  hank  deposits  in  favor  of  this  conn- 


20  DOLLARS,  OE  WHAT? 

(TV  is  much  greater.  These  are,  in  round  figures:  The 
United  States,  $4,000,000,000;  Europe,  $6,500,000,000. 

It  may  be  seen  that  we  have  about  $60  per  capita  in 
deposits  subject  to  call;  and  an  immense  volume  of  checks 
are  in  constant  circulation.  The  total  clearing  house 
exchanges  of  the  United  States  in  1894  amounted  to  S4.V 
615,000,000.*  This  is  an  incredible  sum,  and  these  ex- 
changes supply  the  place  of  a  gre>at  volume  of  money. 
Considering  the  aid  of  this  circulation,  we  have  much 
more  money  per  capita  than  any  other  country.  France, 
with  $36  actual  money  per  capita,  has  only  about  $20  per 
capita  in  bank  deposits. 

Another  advantage  we  have  is  in  the  great  number  of 
small  banks,  widely  scattered,  and  a  corresponding  num- 
ber of  small  deposits,  a  large  per  cent,  of  which  are,  in 
the  form  of  the  bank  check,  constantly  on  the  wing;  and 
one  must  be  a  banker  to  know  how  much  money  people 
get  the  use  of  by  sending  checks  all  over  the  country  be- 
fore deposits  are  made  to  cover  them.  Many  business 
firms  constantly  keep  out  thousands  of  dollars  of  checks 
with  never  a  dollar  of  their  own  money  in  bank.  They 
send  these  checks  from  Maine  to  California,  making  care- 
ful estimates  as  to  how  long  it  takes  them  to  get  round 
to  the  banks  they  are  drawn  on,  and  deposit  money,  or 
similar  checks  (the  greater  per  cent,  of  deposits  being- 
other  checks),  in  time  to  make  them  good.  The  volume 
of  such  checks,  drawn  against  blank  bank  balances,  is 
immense,  and  this  class  of  checks  alone  answers  for  a 
large  circulating  medium. 

We  have  an  abundance  of  money  in  this  country,  if  it 
were  more  evenly  distributed  as  to  sections.  It  unduly 
accumulates  in  the  centers  under  our  present  currency 
system,  and  will  continue  to  do  so  as  long  as  the  bulk  of 
the  money  is  issued  directly  by  the  government. 

The  great  need  of  the  South  and  other  sections  remote 
from  the  centers,  is  a  flexible  bank  note  currency.  Xot 
an  issue  by  banks  of  the  wildcat  order,  but  a  currency 
as  good  as  the  national  bank  note,  though  more  flexible 
than  that  now  is,  and  adapted  to  the  varying  seasons  and 
conditions.  The  South  has  no  interest  in  the  Western 
silver  mines.  It  has  nothing  to  gain  by  unloading  the 
product  on  the  government  And  it  should  turn  its  atten- 

*Monetary  Systems  of  the  World. — Muhleman. 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  •_'! 

tion  to  its  own  practical  needs,  the  most  important  of 
which  is  a  safe  bank  note  currency.  And  particularly 
so  since  a  part  of  that  plan  would  take  the  government 
out  of  the  banking  business,  relieve  the  treasury  of  its 
disturbing  einbarrasments,  and  so  hasten  good  times  thai 
the  Western  miners  would  become  a  hopeless  and  a  help- 
less minoritv.* 


ISSUING  PAPER  AGAINST  SILVER. 

One  of  the  theories  of  the  free  silver  advocate  is  that 
the  government  can  buy  silver  at  about  CO  cents  an  ounce, 
and  issue  paper  money — (generally  called  silver  certiti- 
cates) — against  it  on  a  basis  of  1C  to  1  of  gold;  which 
would  make  $1  of  the  silver  certificate  represent  less  than 
•;o  rents  worth  of  silver  held  against  it  for  its  redemption. 
In  other  words,  if  the  government  should  buy  say  x.V, 
worth  of  silver,  it  would  be  required  to  issue  and  put  into 
circulation  $100  in  silver  certificates.  (The  exact  cost  of 
the  silver  would  depend  on  the  market  price  at  the  time 
of  purchase.)  The  $55  worth  of  silver  would  be  coined 
into  one  hundred  silver  dollars,  and  any  holder  of  the 
<  ertificates  would  be  entitled  to  exchange  them  for  the 
coined  silver.  This  was  in  part  the  principle  of  the  Sher- 
man law. 

P. ut  as  the  writer  has  elsewhere  clearly  shown  the  mere 
stamp  of  the  government  on  paper  gives  it  no  value,  un- 
less there  be  a  promise  to  pay,  and  to  make  the  promise 
trusted,  it  must  be  a  promise  of  full  payment. 

Now  these  silver  certificates  put  out  under  the  Sherman 
law  were  made  payable  in  silver  dollars,  and  as  silver 
declined,  and  these  silver  dollars  declined  in  intrinsic 
marketable  value  till  they  were  worth  little  more  than 
fifty  cents  each,  the  silver  certificates  would  have  been 
worth  just  the  same  but  for  the  fact  that  it  was  the  policy 
of  the  government,  regardless  of  the  law,  to  keep  all  of 
its  money  on  a  parity.  It  was  its  policy  to  make  its  prom- 
ise, as  was  originally  intended,  fully  good — to  make  all 
of  its  dollars  redeemable  in  100  cents  good  money;  there- 
fore, the  government  accepted  the  silver  certificates  and 
silver  dollars  as  well,  for  all  dues,  made  them  interchange- 

-» •   an  article  in  this  book,  "  I.ank  N<.u-  <  'in  illation." 


22  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

able  with  and  practically  redeemable  in  gold.  Otherwise 
we  should  have  had  moneys  of  varying  values.  The  silver 
and  silver  certificates  would  have  been  worth  55  or  60 
cents,  varying  with  the  market  value  of  silver,  and  other 
money  actually  based  on  gold  would  have  been  worth  100 
cents. 

So  it  may  be  seen  that  paper  money  cannot  be  issued 
against  silver  at  a  ratio  of  16  to  1,  and  be  full  face  value 
money,  unless  it  be  interchangeable  with  gold.  And,  as 
elsewhere  clearly  shown,  the  gold  reserve  is  not  strong 
enough  to  carry  any  increased  volume  of  money. 

Moreover,  the  government  has  directly  lost  an  incredi 
ble  sum  making  such  experiments.  Since  1873  it  has 
bought  for  monetary  purposes  silver  costing  five  hundred 
and  nine  million  dollars.  (See  report,  1894,  Bureau  of 
the  Mint.)  The  shrinkage  in  value  from  the  average  cost 
of  $1  per  fine  ounce  has  been  enormous. 

These  experiments  were  forced  on  the  government  as 
"compromises"  by  advocates  of  free  silver  coinage. 

The  Xew  York  Times,  in  a  series  of  carefully  prepared 
articles,  based  on  actual  statistics,  lately  showed  that  the 
losses  to  the  government  on  fiat  paper  money  and  silver, 
have  cost  it  more  than  two  thousand  millions  of  dollars. 
And  the  policy  that  prompted  such  money  has  cost  the 
country  more  than  five  thousand  millions  of  dollars.  This 
estimate  is  far  within  the  true  loss. 

The  financial  policy  of  the  United  States,  dictated  for 
twenty  years  by  the  mining  camps  of  the  West,  would 
have  beggared  and  bankrupted  both  the  government  and 
the  people,  if  the  country  had  not  been  new,  and  the  most 
resourceful  on  earth. 

Theorizing  is  well  enough  for  dreamers,  but  in  matters 
of  business,  common  sense  and  well  knowTn  principles  are 
the  only  safe  guides. 

Free  silver  politicians  who  want  votes,  and  Western 
mine  owners  who  want  other  peoples'  money  at  any  cost, 
to  the  other  people,  have  a  theory  never  tried  under  like 
conditions  in  any  country  in  the  world,  and  they  would 
commit  us  to  that  theory  in  complete  disregard  of  conse- 
quences. 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 


"DISCRIMINATION"  AGAINST  SILVER. 

I  have  before  me  the  T.  S.  Treasurer's  report  for  1894, 
in  which  it  is  estimated  that  in  June,  1878.  there  was  in 
the  count i-y  a  total  silver  circulation  of  only  *87,(>9.':. 

The  free  silver  advocate  claims  thai  since  1*7:;  ijuM-e 
has  been  unrighteous  and  criminal  "discrimination"' 
against  silver,  i'.'.it  what  are  the  facts?  Up  to  187*,  tho 
entire  coinage  oi'  the  country  for  a  centur;.  had  given  us 
a  total  accumulation  of  only  about  eighty-seven  miHions 
of  dollars;  but  since  1878  the  coinage  has  been  so  great 
Thai  \ve  have  now  an  accumulation  of  six  hundred  and 
twenty-five  millions  of  dollars. 

In  other  words,  seventeen  years  ago  we  had  about  one- 
iith  as  much  silver  money  as  we  have  today.  Our 
stock  has  increased  live  hundred  and  thirty-eight  millions 
in  seventeen  years.  And  by  far  the  largest  annual  in- 
crease was  in  the  years  1890-1893,  when  prices  were  fast 
declining. 

Does  this  look  like  discrimination?  Not  only  has  there 
this  incredible  increase,  but  the  entire  stock  of  sil- 
ver dollars  is  made  a  full  legal  tender;  and  notwithstand- 
ing the  fact  that  the  intrinsic  and  marketable  value  of 
this  mass  of  money  has  been  for  sometime  at  a  discount 
of  nearly  50  per  cent,  from  its  face  value,  and  its  legal 
tender,  or  debt-paying  value,  it  is  made  as  good  as  any 
other  money  for  all  practical  purposes.  This  parity  has 
been  maintained  at  a.  cost  to  the  country  of  tens  of 'mill- 
ions of  dollars  of  gold,  and  also  to  the  great  disturbance 
of  all  business  and  commercial  relations. 

The  truth  is,  that  all  financial  legislation  for  twenty 
years  has  tended  directly  to  the  vastly  enlarged  use  of 
silver  as  money,  increasing  its  use  as  shown  seven  times 
in  seventeen  years.  The  effort  has  failed  in  so  far  as  con- 
cerns its  actual  circulation  as  money,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  people  will  handle  but  small  quantities  of  it.  They 
turn  it  into  the  banks,  and  the  banks  turn  it  into  the 
treasury  and  get  other  money  in  exchange  for  it;  and 
there  it  lies  idle  and  useless,  serving  only  to  disturb  confi- 
dence in  our  financial  system.  As  stated  elsewhere,  there 
are  now  only  fifty-six  million  silver  dollars  actually  in 


24  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

circulation,  this  being  all  the  country  appears  willing  to 
use.  Then  why  should  \ve  want  to  coin  any  more  silver? 
Why  should  we  want  free  coinage  or  limited  coinage? 

Inasmuch  as  little  more  than  one  legal  tender  dollar  in 
ten  of  the  present  stock  of  silver  can  actually  be  put  into 
the  channels  of  business,  would  it  not  be  better  to  quit 
agitating  its  further  coinage,  and  quit  disturbing  confi- 
dence in  the  basis  of  our  financial  system? 

It  is  pertinent  in  this  connection  to  suggest,  that  if  the 
increased  or  decreased  use  of  silver  as  money  has  any- 
thing to  do  with  "prices,"  as  the  free  coinage  advocate 
claims,  prices  ought  to  have  been  going  up  at  a  rapid  rate 
during  the  past  seventeen  years. 

The  ingenious  author  of  "Coin"  has  figured  to  a  nicety 
that  the  decline  in  wrheat  has  been  almost  exactly  the 
same  as  the  decline  in  silver. 

From  the  same  point  of  view,  "prices"  ought  to  react 
with  the  increased  use  of  silver;  and  if  wheat  was  w^orth, 
say  (for  easy  illustration),  f  1  per  bushel  in  1878,  it  ought 
now  to  be  worth  f  7  per  bushel,  since  wre  now  have  seven 
times  as  much  silver  money  as  then.  Coffee  was  worth 
11  cents  per  pound  in  1878,  and  ought  therefore  now 
bring  77  cents. 

All  such  figuring  and  reasoning  are  the  foolish  strain- 
ing of  a  foolish  theory,  and  have  no  basis  whatever  in  fact. 
And  yet  upon  this  idea  rests  almost  the  entire  claim  for 
unlimited  coinage  of  silver. 


"  DEMONETIZATION  "  OF  SILVER. 

"Demonetization"  is  a  word  used  in  this  connection 
with  much  looseness,  and  is  generally  misunderstood.  It 
is  a  favorite  word  with  writers  and  speakers  careless  of 
what  they  say,  or  who  intentionally  deceive  and  misrep- 
resent the  facts.  And  many  persons  are  led  to  believe 
that  "demonetization"  means  an  attempt  to  abandon  the 
use  of  silver  for  monetary  purposes. 

All  silver  dollars  now  in  circulation  are  a  legal  tender 
for  the  payment  of  all  debts,  public  and  private,  and  the 
government  makes  no  discrimination  whatever  against 
silver  money.  All  legislation  has  been  directly  in  favor 
of  the  metal  in  the  attempt  to  support  it,  and  in  conse- 


DOLLAKS.  ni:  WHAT? 

qu.ence,  the  "discrimination"  has  really  and  seriously 
been  against  gold. 

(The  old  Trade  Dollar  is  not  a  legal  tender,  and  for  that 
reason  went  out  of  use.  It  is  not  supported  by  the  gov- 
ernment gold  reserve,  and  consequently  it  cannot  be  ex- 
changed for  a  gold  dollar  nor  for  a  legal  tender  silver  or 
paper  dollar.  It  is,  therefore,  worth  only  about  50  cents,- 
although  it  has  the  dollar  stamp  of  the  United  States  on 
its  face.  This  is  clear  proof  of  what  our  silver  money 
would  be  worth  if  it  were  not  interchangeable  with  gold. 
The  mere  stamp  of  the  United  States,  or  of  any  other 
country,  could  not  make  it  worth,  in  purchasing  power, 
more  than  about  50  cents,  its  commercial  value  in  weight.) 

The  repeal  of  the  Sherman  law  did  not  in  any  way 
affect  the  §625,000,000  of  silver  now  in  the  treasury,  and 
in  circulation,  unless,  indeed,  it  strengthened  its  value 
and  its  position  as  good  money.  The  "gold  bugs"  are  not 
trying  to  destroy  the  use  of  silver.  On  the  contrary,  all 
advocates  of  sound  money  want  to  continue  it  in  safe 
quantities  in  use  as  good  money. 

The  government  has  merely  quit  making  any  more  sil- 
ver dollars.  That  is  all  the  "demonetizing"  that  has  been 
done.  The  silver  wre  have  is  as  good,  as  money,  as  it  ever 
was,  and  will  remain  so,  unless  the  free  coinage  people 
succeed  in  putting  us  on  a  free  silver  basis,  in  which 
event  it  would  not  be  worth  more  than  half  its  present 
value,  if,  indeed,  it  would  eventually  be  worth  that. 

And  it  would,  for  a  time  at  least,  be  a  good  deal  harder 
to  get  one  of  the  cheap  silver  dollars  under  free  coinage 
than  it  is  to  get  a  good  silver  dollar  now,  because  all  gold 
would  go  out  of  circulation,  and  we  should  have  much 
less  money  than  now,  to  say  nothing  of  its  greatly  reduced 
purchasing  power. 

There  is  absolutely  no  "demonetizing"  of  silver  in  the 
sense  the  word  is  understood  by  the  mass  of  voters.  It  is 
1  merely  to  deceive  and  mislead. 


THE  "APPRECIATION"  OF  GOLD. 

The  free  coinage  people  assert  that  gold  has  uappre- 
ciated"  in  value,  and  that  its  appreciation  has  depressed 
all  other  values.  This,  like  very  many  other  loose  asser- 


2fi  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

tions  from  this  source,  has  no  foundation  in  fact.  On  the 
contrary,  gold  is  vastly  more  abundant,  and  more  readily 
obtainable,  than  ever  before  in  the  world's  history.  Its 
production  and  circulation  have  increased  within  thirty- 
five  years  more  than  twenty  times  the  ratio  of  the  increase 
in  the  world's  population.  This  estimate  is  based  on 
actual  statistics  of  production. 

About  one-half  the  world's  production  of  gold  during 
the  past  400  years  has  been  produced  within  the  last 
thirty-five  years.*  This  fact,  and  the  well  known  increase 
of  gold  as  money  within  the  memory  of  comparatively 
young  men,  completely  refute  the  claim  that  gold  is  and 
has  been  "appreciating."  Things  or  commodities  do  not 
"appreciate"  when  they  become  more  plentiful. 

Cotton  has  depreciated  greatly  in  value  because  the 
crop  has  from  year  to  year  largely  increased.  Planters 
have  attempted  to  secure  a  general  agreement  to  reduce 
the  acreage,  believing  that  by  so  doing,  and  thus  mate- 
rially reducing  the  supply,  they  could  "appreciate"  its 
value  and  advance  its  price.  The  same  general  law  must 
apply  to  gold. 

It  would  be  hard  to  demonstrate  just  what  relation  the 
volume  of  stable  money  has  on  prices,  since  they  often 
decline  or  advance  without  apparent  reference  to  mone- 
tary conditions.  Supply  and  demand  are  more  important 
factors  than  the  volume  of  money.  But  common  sense 
teaches  that  no  particular  kind  of  money  can  "appreci- 
'ate"  in  value  when  the  supply  is  largely  increased,  as  in 
the  case  of  gold.  Through  its  large  production  only,  sil- 
ver has  depreciated.  And  men  now  living  may  possibly 
see  a  depreciation  in  gold  from  the  same  causes. 

With  the  present  annual  gold  production,  and  the  out- 
look for  increased  production,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the 
output  for  the  next  twenty  years  will  equal  the  total  pro- 
duct for  five  hundred  years  preceding  1860. 

The  output  in  1894  was  about  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  million  dollars;  in  1895  it  promises  to  reach  two  hun- 
dred millions.  That  is  to  say,  the  world  will  produce  as 
much  gold  in  1895  as  was  produced  in  fifty  years  about 
the  time  America  was  discovered;  or  to  come  to  more  re- 
cent years,  double  as  much  as  was  produced  in  ten  years 
from  1821  to  1830;  nearly  as  much  as  was  produced  in 
the  ten  years  1831  to  1840;  one-half  as  much  as  was  pro- 

*See  table  of  world's  production  in  report  of  Director  of  the  Mint. 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  27 

duced  in  the  ten  years,  1841  to  1850;  more  than  a  third 
as  much  as  was  produced  in  five  years  from  1871  to  1875; 
nearly  half  as  much  as  was  produced  in  five  years  from 
1881  to  1885;  and  double  as  much,  lacking  a  few  millions, 
as  was  produced  in  1887.  Since  1887  the  production  has 
been  more  remarkable  than  during  any  other  period  of 
the  world's  history. 

Recent  gold  discoveries  in  Africa,  South  America,  Aus- 
tralia and  other  parts  of  the  world,  are  many  of  them  rich 
beyond  computation.  We  are  in  a  gold  era,  such  as  our 
fathers,  nor  even  we,  ever  dreamed  of. 

Inasmuch  as  more  than  one-half  the  gold  production 
for  four  hundred  years  has  been  within  the  memory  of 
comparatively  young  men,  and  inasmuch  as  that  produc- 
tion is  in  a  fair  way  to  double  before  they  become  very 
old  men,  the  talk  about  the  "appreciation''  of  gold  is  very 
foolish;  so  foolish,  indeed,  that  it  will  not  be  indulged  by 
well  informed  persons,  unless  for  purposes  of  deception. 
There  is  the  greatest  abundance  of  gold  in  all  channels 
of  business  in  the  great  nations  of  Europe,  and  more  than 
one-third  of  the  money  of  the  United  States  is  gold, 
enough  for  all  practical  purposes  if  the  free  silver  people 
should  cease  to  threaten  to  drive  it  out  with  cheaper 
Drone  v. 


GOLD  THE  "MONEY  OF  THE  PEOPLE." 

One  of  the  theories  of  free  coinage  advocates  is  that 
silver  should  hold  its  place  with  gold  as  money  because 
there  is  about  the  same  amount  in  value  of  each  in  the 
world.  But  they  overlook  the  fact  that  it  cannot  be  made 
to  circulate  as  money  in  considerable  quantities.  There 
is.  in  the  United  States,  $9  in  silver  per  capita.  But  ex- 
cepting the  fractional  silver  used  for  change,  there  is  only 
about  80  cents  per  capita  outside  the  treasury  vaults,  and 
probably  little  more  than  half  of  that,  say  50  cents  per 
capha,  is  in  active  circulation.  The  people  find  it  too 
heavy  to  carry  about,  so  they  use  other  money,  and  the 
silver  all  drifts  back  to  the  government  storage  vaults. 
The  greater  part  of  the  gold  of  ihe  country,  however,  has 
always  been  in  circulation.  It  is  used  largely  in  the  set- 
tlement of  bank  balances,  and  it  is  a  favorite  money  with 


28  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

tens  of  thousands  of  the  common  people  who  put  by  small 
savings.  A  few  gold  pieces  may  be  carried  in  the  vest 
pocket,  or  put  in  a  secret  place  without  attracting  atten- 
tion or  the  danger  of  discovery;  silver,  more  bulky  and 
heavier,  is  less  easily  carried  or  concealed.  Rarely  is  sil- 
ver secreted  if  the  holder  has  enough  to  exchange  for  -i 
gold  piece.  Gold  is  really  the  "Money  of  the  People,"  as 
is  clearly  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  the  people  are  now 
using  about  nine  times  as  much  gold  as  silver,  silver 
change  excepted,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  silver 
and  gold  exist  in  the  country  as  money  in  abtfut  equal 
quantities. 

In  November  last  (see  page  42,  Eeport  Bureau  of  the 
Mint)  there  was  |500,381,380  gold  coin  in  the  hands  of 
the  people.  On  the  same  date  there  was  only  $56,443,670 
in  silver  dollars  in  the  hands  of  the  people.  On  the  same 
date  (see  page  41,  Eeport  of  Director  of  Mint)  the  stocks  of 
the  two  metals  in  the  country  were: 

Gold !?» 126,632,068 

Silver 625,335,551 

The  following  table  shows  the  amount  of  silver  dol- 
lars in  actual  circulation  each  year  since  1885.  (See  Mint 
Eeport  for  1894,  page  23) : 

1886 661,000,000 

iss?  62,000,000 

1888 59,000,000 

1889 60,000,000 

1890 65,000,000 

1891 62,000,000 

1892 61,000,000 

1893 58,000,000 

1894 56,000,000 

Eound  figures  are  given.  This  includes  the  silver  dol- 
lars held  by  the  banks,  and  handled  by  them  at  a  loss. 

These  statistics  are  significant,  and  might  be  studied 
to  advantage  by  "Coin,"  and  others  who  preach  free  silver. 

The  simple  figures  show  that  gold  and  not  silver  is 
the  people's  favorite  money  metal. 

On  July  1st,  1894,  the  national  banks  which  are  popu- 
larly supposed  to  own  all  the  gold  in  the  country,  held 
only  |125,051,677  net  gold  coin  (see  report  Bureau  of  the 
Mint,  page  40),  and  only  $34,023,000  gold  certificates. 
That  is  to  say,  that  out  of  $626,000,000  gold  in  the  coun- 
try, the  national  banks  held  about  one-fifth. 

It  is  a  mistaken  notion  that  there  has  ever  been  any 
"combination"  among  these  banks  to  corner  gold,  and 


DOLLARS,  OK  WHAT.'  -.' 

the  simple  figures  make  that  fact  plain  without  argu- 
ment. The  figures  also  show  clearly  that  it  is  the  people 
themselves  who  own  and  control  the  bulk  of  the  coun- 
i  ry's  supply  of  that  metal.  And  it  is  largely  held  in  smaii 
sums  by  the  common  people.  Gold  is  indeed  the  money 
of  the  masses,  and  if  the  people  are  given  the  simple  truth, 
and  get  to  understand  the  facts  elsewhere  stated,  that  it 
is  the  single  purpose  of  a  large  element  of  the  free  silver 
{•arty  to  drive  gold  out  of  the  country  and  leave  only  sil- 
ver, they  will  turn  a  mighty  cold  shoulder  to  the  decep- 
tive pleas  of  the  free  silver  advocates. 

There  is  no  doubt  at  all  of  the  fixed  and  determined 
purpose  of  the  Western  mine  owners,  represented  by  their 
partners  in  Congress,  to  force  the  country  to  the  single 
silver  standard,  with  silver  as  the  only  coin  in  use.  Any 
man  who  has  carefully  followed  their  course  for  ten  years, 
in  and  out  of  Congress,  sees  and  understands  this  as  clear 
as  dav.  They  are  playing  a  desperate  game  for  what  they 
hdieve  to  be  large  personal  gains.  They  have  been  an 
absolute  unit  in  aim,  purpose  and  organization,  stand- 
ing shoulder  to  shoulder  in  every  emergency,  subverting 
all  other  public  questions  and  interests  to  their  owrn  sin- 
gle common  purpose  of  making  the  government  the  uu- 
led  purchaser  of  the  products  of  their  mines.  With 
an  organization  compact  and  intensely  sellish  and  power- 
ful, they  have  long  practically  held  the  balance  of  power 
in  the  Senate,  kept  the  government  wravering  between 
sound  and  unsound  financiering,  wholly  preventing  a 
sa  !'e,  consistent  policy.  They  have  for  years  pursued  their 
end  with  restless  and  untiring  vigilance  and  tenacity, 
hanging  up  important  measures  and  blocking  the  public 
business  at  every  step.  Their  complete  organization  and 
defiant  attitude  has  time  and  again  cowed  and  demor- 
alized both  houses  of  Congress.  They  have  misled  many 
good,  able  and  honest  law-makers  and  very  many  good 
citizens.  They  have  inlluenced  in  their  favor  whole  sec- 
tions of  country  that  would  be  impoverished  if  they  should 
succeed  in  driving  out  the  real  "money  of  the  people"  and 
giving  the  people  for  money  only  such  metal  as  they 

Themselves   have  to  Sell. 

The  people  have  no  time  to  study  finances,  nor  to  set  a 

\vaich  upon  these  ingenious,  scheming  and  greedy  agita- 
tors 10  discover  their  motives  and  plans;  but  they  should 
_iven  the  facts,  plainly  stated. 


30  DOLLARS,  OK  WHAT? 

Several  Western  millionaires  are  now  reported  to  be 
negotiating  for  one  or  more  New  York  newspapers  with 
which  to  influence  people  to  vote  additional  millions  into 
the  pockets  of  the  mine  owners.  These  men  care  nothing 
about  the  welfare  of  the  people.  They  merely  want  to 
sell  silver  at  high  prices  to  the  government. 


THE  GENERAL  DECLINE  IN    PRICES. 

There  has  been  a  steady  and  persistent  decline  in  prices 
since  1865,  and  the  alleged  "demonetization"  of  silver  in 
1873  neither  checked  nor  hastened  that  decline.  We 
emerged  in  1865  from  the  greatest  war  in  modern  times. 
War  is  a  great  destroyer  as  well  as  a  great  consumer. 
During  the  war  period  the  demand  had  greatly  exceeded 
the  supply  in  all  lines.  The  sources  of  production  had 
also  been  cut  off,  or  reduced,  and  prices  had  gone  sky 
ward.  Decline  was  inevitable  and  immediately  set  in. 
Any  one  in  the  mercantile  business  during  the  period  from 
1865  to  1878  w^ill  remember  distinctly  the  difficulty  of 
selling  at  a  profit  any  stock  that  lay  a  few  months  on  the 
shelves. 

The  tremendous  march  of  modern  progress  began  about 
this  time  to  become  a  great  factor  in  the  reduction  of 
prices.  During  the  period  since  1870  the  forces  of  civil- 
ization have  developed  more  power  and  progress  than  in 
five  hundred  years,  or  even  a  thousand  years,  before  that 
time.  The  great  alleged  "crime"  of  "demonetization"  in 
1873  did  not  create  a  ripple  in  the  resistless  sweep  of 
modern  ideas,  invention,  enterprise  and  development. 
Kailroads  have  belted  the  earth,  reaching  thousands  of 
miles  into  wonderfully  rich  and  formerly  unexplored  re- 
gions, enlarging  and  cheapening  beyond  computation 
the  production  of  every  cultivated  thing  that  grows  from 
the  ground,  and  equalizing  (with  cheap  transportation, 
which  has  grown  cheaper  every  year)  all  supplies  in  all 
parts  of  the  world.  Ocean  tonnage  has  also  been  largely 
increased  and  carrying  rates  largely  reduced.  Steam  has 
supplanted  the  sail;  the  six  months'  voyage  of  thirty-five 
years  ago  is  now  measured  by  days  or  weeks.  Where 
capital  was  formerly  tied  up  for  weeks  in  an  ocean  ship- 
ment, it  is  now  released  within  a  few  days.  Where  sales 


LABS,  OR  WHAT?  31 

and  purchases  were  made  through  months  of  correspoud- 

t»y  letter,  the  telegraph  and  cable  now  do  the  work 

in  a  few  hours.    The  cost  of  doing  a  given  volume  of  busi- 

is  reduced  by  50  per  cent.    All  of  these  things  have 

iributed  to  the  steady  and  swift  reduction  of  prices. 

It  should  be  needless  to  direct  attention  to  the  mar- 
velous improvement  and  development  in  mechanical  ap- 
pliances within  twenty-live  years — a  development  prob- 
ably exceeding  that  of  all  time  from  the  days  of  Adam. 
The  cheapening  of  all  manufactured  products  has  been 
in  direct  ratio  to  the  increase  and  perfection  of  these  ap- 
pliances. And,  they  have  also  greatly  reduced  the  cost 
of  growing  and  harvesting  wheat,  corn,  cotton  and  other 
agricultural  produ- 

The  unlimited  coinage  of  silver  could  no  more  have 
stayed  the  effect  of  these  forces  than  a  bunch  of  straw- 
would  turn  Niagara.  They  have  simply  developed  new 
ami  si  range  conditions,  whether  for  the  good  of  mankind 
IT  ih"  inverse  remains  yet  an  unsolved  problem.  But  ir 
would  seem  that  in  the  end  great  good  must  come  from 
the  cheapening  of  the  cost  of  all  the  necessities,  comforts 
and  luxuries  of  living.  Labor  problems,  and  many  vex- 
ing i|iiestioits  and  issues  not  now  quite  clear,  must  be 
adjusted.  But  silver  has  no  place  whatever  in  these  ad- 
justments. 

We  have  had  a  transformation  since  the  "demonetiza- 
tion" of  silver.  We  are  living  in  a  new  age.  And  the  free 
silver  advocates  have  as  yet  been  unable  to  comprehend 
or  accept  the  conditions.  They  have  eyes  but  do  not  see. 
They  cling  to  the  dead  past,  and  live  on  a  pleasing  but 
foolish  memory.  Some  of  them  are  garrulous  ami  mis- 
erable. Others  are  spiteful  and  venomous,  because  they 
foolishly  believe  that  the  great  marching  procession  has 
••conspired"  against  them  and  against  the  idol  they  have 
so  long  cherished  with  singleness  of  heart  and  pathetic 
devotion.  They  are  mischievous,  because  some  of  ;hem 
have  tilled  high  places.  Many  people  an-  impressed  with 
the  tenacity  of  their  devotion:  others  are  attracted  by  the 
noise  t  hey  make.  Hut  they  are  as  unsafe  guides  as  an  old 
man  in  his  dotage  with  a  host  of  imaginary  wrongs. 


32  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

OLD  TIME  PRICES. 

Who  has  not  heard  his  father  or  his  grandfather  talk 
about  prices  in  the  days  when  there  were  no  railroads— 
when  every  neighborhood  was  a  market  unto  itself,  and 
the  silver  "dollar  of  the  constitution"  was  good  enough 
for  anybody? 

How  the  dear  old  fellows  like  to  talk  of  the  good  old 
days  when  farm  hands  got  $GO  a  year  and  a  potato  patch 
thrown  in  for  good  count*;  when  corn  sold  at  20  cents  a 
bushel,  sheep  at  50  cents  a  head,  and  fine  beef  cattle, 
sleek  and  fat,  at  $8  and  f  10  each,  average,  for  the  "bunch ;" 
when  a  strapping  young  fellow,  brimful  of  vim  and  high 
hope,  thought  himself  in  luck  and  the  envy  of  his  fellows 
if  he  got  a  place  in  the  village  store  at  $75  a  year  and 
"found"  himself;  when  the  smart,  lusty  "chap"  went  to 
serve  at  a  trade  at  $20  a  year,  a  few  coarse  clothes,  and 
a  cot  in  the  garret  "to  boot."  Not  many  years  ago  the 
writer  was  wont  to  smoke  a  cigar  after  supper  with  a  fine 
old  gentleman  who  never  tired  in  the  recital  of  incidents 
of  those  days  of  good  will  and  good  cheer.  And  how  he 
loved  to  dwell  on  the  time  when  he  entered  the  biggest 
store  in  his  part  of  the  state  at  $100  a  year,  being  re- 
warded for  faithful  service  with  an  additional  $50  when 
Christmas  came.  Ah,  those  wrere  piping  times  of  peace 
and  plenty!  There  were  no  "gold  bugs"  then.  There 
were  no  national  banks,  with  hated  privileges.  Anybody 
who  could  start  a  printing  press  could  go  into  banking 
and  issue  money.  True,  the  money  had  to  be  pretty  well 
sorted  before  the  old  fellows  started  on  a  journey,  and 
they  were  never  quite  sure  it  would  be  good  when  their 
destination  was  reached,  but  such  inconveniences  were 
good-naturedly  accepted.  There  were  no  "conspirators" 
then  to  vex  Uncle  Sam  and  other  honest  folks.  There 
was  no  "contraction"  of  the  currency.  The  few  millions 
of  gold  and  silver  were  so  widely  and  sparsely  scattered 
that  the  most  wicked  ingenuity  could  get  but  little  of  it 
together;  and  as  to  the  paper,  the  "bankers"  who  put  it 
out,  it  being  their  own  product,  were  never  in  a  hurry  to 
get  it  back;  and  so  great  indeed  was  their  reluctance  to 
call  it,  that  much  of  it  is  out  to  this  good  day. 


OR  WHAT?  M 

The  great  "crime''  of  the  age  had  not  then  been  com- 
mitted. Silver  had  not  then  been  "demonetized."  And 
I  have  sometimes  thought  what  a  happy  circumstance  it 
would  have  been  if  some  of  the  "friends"  of  silver  had 
lived  at  that  time,  when  nobody  had  ever  thought  of  "dis- 
criminating" against  their  cherished  metal.  But  the 
prices  then  would  have  been  harrowing  to  their  souls, 
free  coinage  and  silver  at  a  premium  considered.  "Prices" 
are  a  great  worry  to  the  "friends"  of  silver,  as,  indeed, 
they  are  to  all  the  rest  of  us.  Even  corn  at  45  cents  a 
bushel  and  labor  at  90  cents  a  day,  with  "demonetized" 
silver,  vexes  them  beyond  measure;  and  it  would  not  be 
safe  to  say  what  might  have  been  the  effect  of  Peffer, 
Stewart  and  Bland,  for  instance,  if  they  had  seen  free 
silver,  with  farm  wages  $5  per  month  and  corn  20  cents  a 
bushel.  But  the  writer  trusts  he  may  be  pardoned  the 
wish,  which  ought  not  be  an  unkind  one,  that  these  three, 
and  a  few  others,  had  indeed  been  of  that  generation. 
1'iissibly  some  of  them  were  living  in  those  days;  but  if 
si,,  free  and  high  price  silver  and  corn  at  20  cents  must 
have  cost  them  many  serious  and  painful  reflections, 
which,  however,  they  have  doubtless  forgotten.  Silver  at 
10  to  1  was  more  valuable  than  gold  (there  being  mined 
then  several  thousand  million  dollars  less  than  now),  but 
there  were  no  sky-scraping  prices  of  farm  products,  which 
is  a  curious  circumstance,  from  the  Stewart-Peffer  point 
of  view. 


SILVER  AND  WHEAT. 

The  world's  production  of  wheat  has  grown  from  two 
thousand  four  hundred  and  thirty-three  million  bushels 
in  1  N'.I  1  to  two  thousand  six  hundred  and  forty-five  million 
bushels  in  1894.  This  is  a  gain  in  supply  of  two  hundred 
and  twelve  million  bushels.  But  a  more  significant  fact, 
and  one  of  greater  concern  to  American  agriculturalists, 
i-  that  the  wheat  exporting  countries  of  South  America 
and  Russia  have  in  this  period  gained  two  hundred  and 
fifty-six  million  bushels  in  wheat  production.  That  is  to 
say,  in  1SH-1  Russia  and  South  America  had  two  hundred 
and  fifty-six  million  bushels  more  wheat  to  sell  in  compe- 
tition with  the  wheat  of  the  Tinted  Slates  than  they  had 
in  1891.  And  a  matter  of  still  greater  significance  and 


34  DOLLARS,  OK  WHAT? 

concern  is  that  the  large  export  surplus  of  fifty  million 
bushels  of  the  Argentine  Kepublic  last  year  was  produced 
at  a  cost  estimated  not  to  exceed  thirty-four  to  thirty- 
seven  cents  per  bushel  laid  down  at  the  seaboard  shipping 
point.*  Considering  these  facts,  and  the  enormous  crop 
harvested  in  the  United  States  in  1894,  is  it  necessary  for 
the  American  farmer  to  puzzle  his  brain  for  an  explana- 
tion of  the  low  price  of  wheat?  Is  silver  somehow  at  the 
bottom  of  it,  as  is  foolishly  stated  in  "Coin's  Financial 
School,"  or  is  it  a  tremendous  overproduction  and  a  com- 
pletely glutted  market?  Is  it  the  "crime"  against  the 
product  of  the  Western  silver  mines,  represented  by  Stew- 
art, Peffer,  and  associates,  or  is  it  the  result  of  the  open- 
ing up  and  cultivation  of  vast  new  tracts  of  the  Lord's 
bountiful  earth? 

There  wras  more  coined  silver  and  more  idle  money  of 
all  kinds  in  the  United  States  in  1894,  when  wheat  touched 
its  lowest  price,  than  ever  before.  The  New  York  Times, 
of  March  25th,  1895,  from  which  the  statistics  are  taken, 
commenting  on  the  effect  of  over-production  on  prices, 
says : 

"The  natural  effect  of  such  increase,  in  exporting  coun- 
tries, on  prices,  can  easily  be  seen.  It  may  be  noted, 
also,  that  Russia  has  an  export  surplus  of  192,000,000 
bushels  of  rye,  against  70,000,000  bushels  a  year  ago." 

This  item  of  122,000,000  bushels  increased  surplus  of  a 
cereal  largely  substituted  for  wrheat  in  many  countries 
has  been  an  important  factor  in  determining  prices. 

The  depression  of  business  and  the  blocking  of  all  kinds 
of  enterprise  on  account  of  silver  agitation  has  also  con- 
tributed something  toward  depressing  wheat  People 
cannot  buy  bread  freely  unless  they  have  work.  Capital, 
too,  has  been  timid  of  investment  in  wheat,  as  in  every- 
thing else;  and  the  withdrawal  of  this  sustaining  influ- 
ence has  been  an  important  factor  in  the  sagging  of  prices 
of  all  commodities. 


^Estimates  by  the  New  York  Times. 


lK)I.I..\l:s.  oil   WHAT? 


SILVER  AND  COFFEE. 

Reversing  the  order  of  wheat  and  cotton,  coffee  has 
advanced  gradually  and  enormously  during  the  past  ten 
years. 

The  writer,  being  at  the  time  in  the  wholesale  grocery 
business,  remembers  that  about  1885  he  bouqht  coffee  in 
Xew  York  at  about  7  cents  per  pound  for  fair  grades.  It 
is  now  worth  about  18  cents  per  pound. 

Silver  was  worth  $1.06  per  ounce  in  1885.  It  is  worth 
a  little  over  60  cents  per  ounce  now.  If  the  price  of  sil  v«-r 
regulates  the  prices  of  other  things,  why  has  coffee  gnu;- 
up  nearly  300  per  cent,  in  ten  years  and  silver  gone  down 
nearly  50  per  cent.? 

The  explanation  is  simple,  and  is  the  simple  explana- 
tion that  applies  to  the  rise  and  fall  of  wheat,  corn,  cotton 
and  all  other  products,  whether  of  the  mine,  the  mill  ov 
the  farm. 

The  production  and  supply  of  coffee  in  1885  was  ex- 
cessive. More  coffee  was  produced  than  the  world  could 
well  consume.  High  prices  in  former  years  had  greatly 
stimulated  its  production,  and  an  undue  number  of  peo- 
ple went  into  coffee  growing.  The  increasing  supply 
overstocked  the  markets,  and  prices  gradually  declined. 

And  when  they  got  so  low  that  coffee  production  be- 
came unprofitable,  the  industry  was  abandoned  by  many 
producers.  The  supply  was  gradually  reduced,  and  stim- 
ulated by  short  crops,  coffee  went  up.  Another  period 
of  low  prices  in  coffee,  brought  about  from  the  same 
causes,  is  likely  after  a  time  to  set  in. 

The  decline  or  the  advance  in  the  price  of  silver  has  no 
more  influence  on  the  marketable  value  or  prices  of  things 
than  the  remotest  star  in  heaven  on  the  tides  of  the  ocean. 


SILVER,  WHEAT  AND  COFFEE. 

Brazil  produces  a  large  per  cent,  of  the  coffee  grown. 
The   Argentine  Republic   produces  a  large  amount   of 

wheat. 


36  COLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

Xo\v  in  Brazil  coffee  has  advanced  in  ten  years  from 
say  (>  cents  per  pound  to  say  16  or  17  cents  per  pound  on 
the  Brazilian  seaboard. 

But  note  the  contrary  course  of  wheat  in  the  Argentine 
Republic.  In  1885  the  cost  of  wheat  in  that  country  ex- 
ceeded $1.50  per  bushel.  It  is  now  about  40  cents.  The 
greater"  part  of  the  crop  of  1894  was  sold  by  Argentine 
farmers  at  about  38  cents.* 

In  other  words,  the  wheat  product  of  Argentina,  and  of 
the  world,  /radually  grew  till  it  exceeded  the  demand, 
while,  on  the  contrary,  the  supply  of  coffee  in  Brazil  and 
other  coffee  countries  grew  less  till  the  demand  exceeded 
the  supply. 

Silver  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  rise  or  the 
fall  of  either. 


SILVER  AND  COTTON. 

For  the  five  years,  1890-1894,  inclusive,  the  total  pro- 
duction of  cotton  in  the  United  States  was,  in  round  fig- 
ures, 44,000,000  bales.  For  the  previous  five  years,  it  was 
a  little  above  34,000,000  bales.  That  is  to  say,  in  the 
years  1890  to  1894  we  grew  nearly  10,000,000  bales  more 
cotton  than  in  the  preceding  five-year  period.  The  pro- 
duction also  increased  in  other  countries. 

With  such  tremendous  gain  in  supply,  with  an  actual 
and  substantial  falling  off  in  consumption  during  part  of 
this  period  (the  falling  off  amounting  to  about  500,000 
bales  in  1893),  need  we  look  up  the  market  price  of  silver 
to  account  for  the  price  of  cotton? 

If  the  wrorld  grows  more  cotton  than  it  can  sell  to  the 
spinners  and  other  manufacturers,  what  is  to  be  done 
with  the  surplus?  People  cannot  eat  it,  build  houses 
with  it,  or  otherwise  use  it.  Somebody  must  hold  it;  put 
money  into  it;  pay  interest,  storage  and  insurance;  give  it 
time  and  attention.  The  contingencies  of  future  con- 
sumption and  supply  must  be  taken  account  of.  The  sur- 
plus becomes  purely  speculative,  at  greatly  reduced 
value.  And  it  brings  down  the  price  of  the  entire  supply. 
With  a  large  surplus  on  hand,  and  a  production  of  ten 
million  bales  per  year  in  the  United  States  (an  excess  of 

*E6timates  made  on  gold  rallies. 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  37 

two  million  bales  per  annum  abore  legitimate  demands 
from  this  country),  with  no  certainty,  or  even  reasonable 
probability,  of  decreased  production,  can  anybody  fail  to 
see  why  cotton  is  lower  than  ever  before?  The  state  of 
Texas  alone  grew  last  year  nearly  half  as  much  cotton  a.< 
TV  as  grown  in  the  entire  South  ten  years  ago;  and  the  pro- 
duction in  that  state  can  be  largely  increased  at  a  proiit, 
cvtMi  at  present  prices. 

If  silver  were  30  cents,  75  cents,  $1.00  or  $2  per  ounce, 
would  the  present  large  surplus  of  cotton  and  the  over- 
production in  the  United  States  of  two  million  bales  pet* 
annum  disappear?  It  would  if  the  decline  in  silver  has 
been  the  cause  of  the  decline  in  cotton,  as  the  fertile  au- 
thor of  "Coin,"  and  other  visionaries  have  figured;  but  a 
practical  man  would  say  that  the  crops  must  be  reduced 
f>\  o  million  bales,  or  new  uses  must  be  found  to  consume 
two  million  bales  more  than  the  world  now  consumes,  if 
the  old  standard  of  prices  are  again  to  prevail. 


SILVER  IN   FRANCE. 

Free  coinage  orators  point  to  France  as  a  country  that 
has  done  wonders  with  silver.  But  when  silver  began  to 
decline,  and  its  coinage  ratio  to  go  below  the  gold  value, 
France  closed  her  mints  to  silver. 

A  recent  statement  of  the  Bank  of  France*  showed 
specie  holdings  as  follows: 

Cold $4,SO,000,000 

Silver 225,000,000 

Showing  $205,000,000  more  gold  than  silver. 
The  November  statement  of  the  United  States  Treas- 
ury showed  specie  holdings: 

Silver ^508,000,000 

ti..ld 128,000,000 

Showing  $382,000,000  more  silver  than  gold. 

So  it  appears  that  the  Bank  of  France  held  nearly  $2 
in  gold  to  every  dollar  in  silver,  while  the  United  States 
Treasury  held  only  $1  in  gold  to  every  $4  in  silver. 

The  Bank  of  France,  on  the  date  referred  to,  held  nearly 
double  as  much  gold  as  the  Bank  of  England;  and  France 
is  as  firmly  a  gold  standard  country  as  England,  and  will 

*See  1894  Report  of  the  Director  of  the  Mint. 


38  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

always  remain  so.  And  it  was  wise  enough  to  stop  the 
coinage  of  silver  before  it  endangered  its  gold  supply. 
There  is  no  free  coinage  party  in  France,  nor,  indeed,  in 
any  other  great  civilized  country,  excepting  the  United 
States. 

France  has  a  total  of  $825,000,000  of  gold  and  $492,000,- 
000  of  silver,  nearly  double  as  much  gold  as  silver,  while 
the  United  States  has  almost  equal  quantities  of  each. 


FREE  COINAGE  IN  MEXICO. 

Our  next  door  neighbor,  Mexico,  has  produced  more 
silver  than  any  country  in  the  world.  The  mines  of  Chi- 
huahua alone  have  produced  more  than  five  hundred 
million  dollars.  Sonora,  Zacetecas  and  others  have 
yielded  even  more.  Coinage  is  free  in  Mexico.  And  yet 
the  people  are  poor  beyond  the  conception  of  the  common 
American  laborer.  All  labor  \*  poorly  paid.  The  writer 
spent  some  time  in  Mexico  some  years  ago,  and  made  par- 
ticular inquiry  as  to  wages  paid  in  agriculture  and  min- 
ing, the  principal  industries  of  the  country,  and  found 
them  varying  from  10  to  36  cents  per  day,  which  is  equiv- 
alent to  5  to  18  cents  in  American  money. 

The  average  for  the  farm  laborer  did  not  exceed  20 
cents  per  day,  or  about  10  cents  in  our  money.  The  peo- 
ple live  in  huts,  subsist  on  the  coarsest  food,  and  $2  in 
American  money  would  buy  the  average  outfit,  from  head 
to  foot,  in  clothing. 

This  is  the  condition  in  a  free  coinage  country  that  has 
produced  more  than  four  thousand  million  dollars  of  sil- 
ver, and  which  is  still  producing  silver  at  a  larger  ratio 
per  capita  than  anv  other  country  in  the  world,  its  exports 
of  the  metal  in  1893  being  $51,000,000,  and  in  1892,  $49, 
000,000.  I  have  not  the  statistics  for  1894.  Mexico  has  a 
population  of  12,000,000.  If  the  United  States  produced 
silver  in  the  same  proportion  or  the  same  rate  per  capita, 
counting  Mexico's  exports  only,  our  production  would  be 
$300,000,000  annually,  yet  who  would  say  that  the  people 
of  that  country  are  better  off  than  we? 

Mexico  has  a  money  circulation  of  $4.71  per  capita. 

A  low  rate  per  capita  exists  in  nearly,  if  not  quite  all, 
silver  countries. 


DOLLAKS.  oil  WHAT?  :','.) 

Tlie  people  who  advocate  free  coinage  in  the  United 
States  claim  that  low  prices  and  depressed  trade  condi- 
tions are  due  to  our  gold  standard,  and  insist  that  free 
coinage  would  bring  an  era  of  prosperity.  If  any  of 
them  will  move  across  the  border  into  Mexico  their  opin- 
ions will  undergo  a  decided  change.  A  move  merely  to 
the  border  will  have  a  wholesome  effect. 

On  the  Mexican  side  there  is  small  progress  and  un- 
favorable conditions  generally,  while  within  the  United 
States  line  there  is  activity,  growth  and  fair  prosperity. 
All  the  cities  and  villages  near  the  line  are  built  and  are 
building  on  the  American  side. 

Free  silver  coinage  can  make  no  country  prosperous; 
on  the  contrary,  the  mere  apprehension  of  it  is  quite  suffi- 
cient to  depress  business  and  arrest  enterprise  in  any  en- 
lightened, prosperous  nation. 


TRAIN  LOADS  OF  SILVER. 

"Coin,"  with  a  stick  twenty-two  feet  long,  deftly  meas- 
ujes  off  a  space  which  he  says  would  hold  all  the  gold  in 
the  world;  which,  it  may  be  said,  in  the  strongest  argu- 
ment he  could  have  made  in  favor  of  gold  as  money. 

He  then  neatly  disposes  of  the  world's  silver  money  by 
saying  that  it  could  all  be  stored  in  a  Chicago  banking 
room  and  basement. 

1 1  is  idea  is  original,  but  he  does  not  put  it  in  a  way  that 
his  pupils  quite  grasp  the  enormity  of  the  pile.  It  would 
be  a  little  more  understandable  if  he  had  said  that  there 
is  enough  coined  silver  to  load  fairly  well  three  hundred 
trains  of  twenty  cars  each,  or  a  total  of  six  thousand  car 
loads.  He  might  have  explained  further  that  there  arc 
eight  hundred  and  forty-four  car  loads  of  silver  held  for 
monetary  purposes  in  the  United  States;  and  also  ex- 
plained that  it  is  impossible  to  keep  more  than  seventy- 
six  car  loads  of  that  outside  of  the  Treasury,  of  which 
probably  forty  or  forty -five  car  loads  are  stored  in  bank 
vaults;  showing  that  thirty  or  forty  car  loads  are  as  much 
as  the  people  are  willing  to  carry  about  in  their  pockets 
and  secrete  in  their  homes. 

The  United  States  produced  in  the  single  year  1893, 
one  hundred  and  four  car  loads  of  silver,  almost  three 


40  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT  ? 

times  as  much  as  the  people  will  carry  about  with  them, 
and  more  than  twice  as  much,  excepting  silver  change, 
as  can  be  kept  in  circulation  outside  the  Treasury. 

In  1893  the  world  produced  two  hundred  and  eighty-two 
car  loads  of  silver.  The  production  had  since  1874  in- 
creased in  every  year,  excepting  one ;  and  would  have  con- 
tinued to  increase  more  rapidly  but  for  the  fact  that  it  be- 
gan to  decline  in  price  because  it  became  so  abundant  it 
could  not  be  utilized  either  as  money,  or  in  the  arts. 

Owing  to  the  improved  methods  of  mining  within  very 
recent  years,  and  discoveries  of  new  mines  and  mining 
regions  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  it  is  perfectly  safe 
to  say  that  if  silver  had  remained  at  even  the  greatly  de- 
preciated price  of  f  1.00  per  ounce,  not  less  than  $300,000,- 
000  or  say  four  hundred  and  five  car  loads,  would  have 
been  mined  in  the  year  1895 — about  ten  times  as  much 
as  the  people  of  the  United  States  keep  in  active  use. 

At  this  rate  of  production  22,500  car  loads  would  be 
turned  out  in  an  ordinary  lifetime.  All  the  locomotives 
on  the  largest  system  of  railroads  in  the  world  could  hard- 
ly haul  it. 

And  the  capacity  of  production  is  unlimited.  If  its 
value  could  be  raised  even  to  84  cents  an  ounce,  its  price 
in  1893,  its  output  would  now  far  exceed  the  two  hundred 
and  eighty-two  car  loads  mined  in  that  year.  But  in  the 
face  of  unlimited  quantities  in  sight,  and  unlimited  re- 
sources for  getting  it  out  of  the  mines,  no  great  or  perma- 
nent rise  in  its  price  is  possible.  And  under  such  condi- 
tions its  constant  fluctuation  in  value  is  inevitable.  If 
the  price  is  so  low  that  little  is  mined,  it  will  go  up;  if  it 
advances  enough  to  show  a  profit  enterprise  and  capital 
will  at  once  increase  the  output,  and  it  will  go  down.  The 
output  is  limited  by  the  price  only. 

The  principle  is  the  same  as  in  pork  production.  If 
hogs  are  high,  farmers  everywhere  go  to  raising  them; 
and  soon  glut  the  market.  Then  the  price  of  pork  de- 
clines till  hog  raising  becomes  unprofitable;  and  the 
farmer  tries  his  hand  at  something  else. 

Does  anybody  want  a  currency  based  on  such  a  metal, 
a  currency  that  a  lot  of  miners  put  up  or  down  as  their 
interests  prompt?  Today  you  have  Dollars,  tomorrow 
vou  have — What? 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT.'  41 


GOLD  AND  SILVER  PRODUCTION. 

The  world's  total  stock  of  metallic  money  is  approxi- 
mately $8,600,000,000,  the  proportion  of  gold  and  silver 
being  not  far  from  equal,  there  being  about  one-tenth 
more  of  the  latter;  say  $4,100,000,000  gold  and  $4,500,000,- 
000  silver. 

This  is  the  total  money  accumulation  of  these  metals 
from  the  date  of  their  use  to  the  present  time. 

And  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  world's  production 
of  the  money  metals  within  the  last  thirty-five  years  has 
been  approximately  $7,300,000,000,  of  which  about  $3,950,- 
000,000  was  gold  and  $3,350,000,000  silver. 

Much  more  gold  than  silver  was  consumed  in  the  arts; 
and  several  hundred  millions  more  silver  than  gold  was, 
in  that  period,  available  for  coinage  into  money. 

This  immense  increased  supply  of  the  precious  metals 
became  the  property  of  a  few  countries,  since  it  was 
through  the  agencies  of  the  progressive,  civilized  nations 
only  that  it  was  produced. 

^  The  gold  was  readily  absorbed,  owing  to  its  great 
value  in  small  compass;  but  these  enterprising  countries 
suddenly  accumulated  more  silver  than  they  could  use  as 
money.  For  instance,  the  silver  of  Mexico  is  mined  large- 
ly by  Americans  and  Englishmen,  and  its  large  output 
goes  mainly  to  England  and  the  United  States.  This  is 
the  simple  reason  why  certain  countries  limited  the  coin- 
age of  silver.  It  is  the  reason  why  there  can  not  be  free 
coinage  without  involving  these  countries  in  hopeless 
bankruptcy. 

In  former  periods  the  supply  of  the  metal  was  limited, 
and  the  people  had  no  more  than  they  could  handle  and 
carry  about,  but  the  largely  increased  stock  could  not  be 
circulated. 

It  is  shown  elsewhere  that  only  about  80  cents  of  silver 
per  capita  can  be  actually  circulated  in  the  United  States, 
and  the  same  condition  exists  in  all  other  countries  where 
a  lighter  and  more  convenient  currency  is  available 

Its  "demonetization"  by  any  country  was  not  from 
choice,  but  from  necessity.  It  was  not  done  because  any 
particular  class  of  men  or  legislative  body  wanted  it  done, 
but  because  the  people,  in  effect,  said  to  the  lawmakers: 


42  DoLLAKS,  OK  WHAT? 

"You  are  giving  us  too  much  of  this  kind  of  money;  it 
is  too  bulky  and  heavy;  ten  or  twenty  dollars  weights  the 
pocket;  we  cannot  hide  it;  when  we  have  money  we  do  not 
want  everybody  to  know  it;  you  can  coin  it  if  you  want  to, 
but  if  you  do  so  you  must  keep  it;  if  you  give  it  to  us  we 
will  give  it  back  to  you  in  exchange  for  more  convenient 
money." 

Any  great  change  in  the  laws  of  any  country  has  its 
source  in  the  people.  The  people  of  certain  nations  of 
Europe  decreed  by  their  acts  that  the  coinage  of  silver 
must  stop. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  have  passed  a  similar 
decree.  And  in  this  decision,  all  the  silver  bugs  as  well 
as  the  gold  bjugs,  have  joined;  the  free  silver  advocate  is 
no  more  willing  than  the  sound  money  man  to  accept 
pocketfuls  of  silver  in  payment  of  accounts.  If  he  gets 
$50  of  the  metal  he  strikes  a  bee  line  for  a  bank  and  con- 
verts it  into  paper  or  gold,  or  places  it  to  his  credit,  and 
draws  out  paper  or  gold  as  he  wants  it  He  has  directly 
aided  in  its  "demonetization,"  and  in  depressing  its  com- 
mercial value.  Although  he  cries  "free  silver,"  he  carries 
bills  or  gold  in  his  pockets,  and  leaves  the  silver  for  the 
government  to  hoard  in  idleness. 

And  the  United  States  Treasury's  hoard  of  silver  is  ab- 
solutely idle  and  useless.  The  1894  report  of  the  Bureau 
of  the  Mint  places  the  sum  at  $514,000,000.  It  is  almost 
worthless  as  an  asset,  because  there  is  no  possible  way  to 
use  it.  Pensioners,  contractors,  and  employes  of  the  gov- 
ernment, whether  free  silver  advocates  or  otherwise,  re- 
fuse to  accept  it  in  payment  for  services  and  bills. 

For  the  same  reason  it  is  worth  nothing  as  a  support 
to  the  credit  of  the  government.  On  the  contrary,  it  is, 
for  good  reasons,  a  peril  and  a  menace. 

Any  other  government  would  melt  much  of  it  down  and 
sell  it;  but  the  Western  mine  owners  hold  the  balance  of 
power  at  Washington,  and  they  do  not  want  it  put  on  the 
market  in  competition  with  their  product. 

If  gold  could  be  obtained  for  a  good  part  of  it,  the  whole 
country  would  soon  have  great  cause  to  rejoice.  Such  a 
deal  would  be  a  great  bargain  and  a  great  blessing.  Our 
fiat  money  would  have  substantial  support,  and  our  na- 
tional finances  could  be  handled  with  ease  and  confidence. 

Furthermore,  the  stability  it  would  give  would  soon 


!X)LLAi:s.  OK  WHAT?  43 

largely  increase  our  supply  of  good  money,  and  our  rate 
per  capita. 

The  facts  here  stated  and  the  statistics  given  make 
plain  the  causes  of  the  decline  in  the  prices  of  silver,  and 
<if  the  largely  increased  ratio  of  value  between  gold  and 
silver. 


FLUCTUATIONS  IN  THE  SILVER  DOLLAR. 

The  following  table  shows,  in  the  years  named,  the 
fluctuation  in  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  silver  dollar: 

YEAK>.  HKMIKST.  I.uU 

1876 W  cents 7H  centa 

1878 <J3  cents s:l  cents 

• <>1    cents 82  cents 

• 7!)  cents 71  cents 

0 5)2  cents 74  cents 

1892 74  cents tit  cents 

189o t>5  cents 50  cents 

Only  years  are  given  in  which  the  change  was  most 
striking.  Fluctuations,  however,  have  been  marked  each 
year  since  the  large  overproduction  of  silver  began  to  glut 
th£  market. 

If  the  country  had  been  on  a  silver  basis  in  the  year 
1876,  for  instance,  a  dollar  of  any  kind  of  money  would 
have  been  worth  in  July,  187<>,  7!>  cents,  and  in  December, 
9!)  cents.  In  the  following  year  it  would  have  been  worth 
about  90  cents,  and  down  again  in  1878  to  83  cents;  up 
again  in  1879  to  91  cents,  and  so  on  through  each  year 
down  to  the  present  time.  In  1893  it  dropped  from  (\r, 
cents  to  about  50  cents,  a  change  in  value  of  --'5  per  cent. 
in  a  single  year. 

The  capacity  of  production  being  now  practically  unlim- 
ited, its  fluctuation  will  inevitably  continue. 

(treat  hardship  and  uncertainty  would  result  if  wages, 
salaries,  the  products  of  labor,  contracts  and  credits  were 
based  on  such  money. 

And  the  poor  man,  who  earns  his  living  by  the  s\veat  of 
his  brow,  would  suffer  most.  While  at  times  the  dollar 
of  !>.".  or  '.»!»  cents  might  keep  him  in  comfort,  his  wife  and 
little  ones  would  be  sorely  pinched  when  the  dollar 
dropped  to  <>5  or  to  50  cents.  His  wages  would  not  go  up 
and  down  with  the  dollar,  but  his  food  and  clothing  would 
do  so. 


44  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

And  furthermore,  the  uncertainty  of  values  would  so 
disturb  the  business  of  his  employer  that  work  would  be 
precarious.  His  employment  and  subsistence  would  fluc- 
tuate with  the  output  of  the  silver  mine.  He  would  be 
constantly  on  the  ragged  edge,  and  at  the  mercy  of  ad- 
venturous mine  operators  and  speculators. 

The  wage  earner,  above  all  other  men,  is  vitally  con- 
cerned in  a  fixed,  unchanging  standard  of  money.  His 
living  is  too  slender  to  admit  of  the  risk  of  change  and 
speculation.  He  can  not  afford  to  base  it  on  the  chance 
of  any  industry,  especially  not  that  of  silver  mining. 

The  silver  dollar  appears  to  be  a  mighty  good  dollar 
now,  since  it  buys  anything  that  can  be  bought  with  any 
other  kind  of  a  dollar;  but  this  is  simply  because  it  is 
braced  up  by,  and  made  interchangeable  with,  the  gold 
dollar. 

But  if  it  stood  alone,  without  a  law  or  a  policy  that 
makes  it  exchangeable  for  100  eents  in  gold,  its  purchas- 
ing value  would  be  as  uncertain  as  the  wind  and  weather. 

It  cannot  be  that  any  man  who  understands  this  matter 
favors  free  coinage  of  silver,  which  means  a  silver  basis 
and'  unsteady  money. 


On  a  silvet  money  basis  all  market  values  in  the  United  States 
would  change  with  the  tising  and  setting  of  t)u  sun. 


STANDARD  OF  GRAIN  MEASURE. 

A  bushel  is  the  standard  measure  of  grain.  Contracts 
of  sale  and  purcha.se  are  made  on  this  basis.  And  it  is 
a  stable  measure,  because  it  does  not  change. 

But  suppose  it  were  a  fluctuating  measure,  a  little  more 
today,  a  little  less  tomorrow — what  confusion  would  re- 
sult! When  the  farmer  sold  his  wheat  he  would  be 
obliged  to  do  a  complicated  sum  in  mathematics  to  find 
out  how  much  he  got  for  it. 

Yet  there  would  be  less  confusion  in  a  changing  grain 
measure  than  in  a  changing  money  measure,  because  the 
effect  of  the  latter  would  be  more  general. 

And  a  silver  standard  would  be  such  a  money  measure 
because  silver  is  a  commoditv  of  uncertain  market  value. 


<>K   WHAT?  45 

\Vith  a  silver  basis,  <n-  measure  of  money,  the  farmer 
would  be  al  as  great  loss  to  know  what  he  got  for  his 
wheat,  barley,  com,  oats  and  rye  as  if  the  bushel  basis  or 
measure  of  grain  changed  every  day. 

i  lold  is  now  the  unchanging  measure  of  money- just  as 
the  bushel  is  the  unchanging  measure  of  corn. 

Can  any  practical  man  desire  to  change  either? 


RATIO  BETWEEN  GOLD  AND  SILVER. 

"Coin"  has  a  good  deal  to  say  about  the  commercial 
ratio  of  silver  to  gold.  He  goes  back  a  century  or  two 
and  shows  that  this  ratio  was  fairly  steady  through  the 
period  he  goes  over.  This  is  true,  and  there  were  a  num- 
ber of  good  reasons  for  it,  the  chief  being  that  the  produc- 
tion of  gold  and  silver  were  happily  in  about  the  propor- 
t  ions  needed. 

But  it  suits  his  purpose  not  to  go  further  back  than 
ir,x7.  Prior  to  1680,  covering  the  period  from  1493,  there 
had  been  a  change  of  50  per  cent,  in  the  ratio. 
*•  The  "appreciation"  of  gold  and  the  depreciation  of  sil- 
ver through  this  period  is  a  very  interesting  circumstance 
in  connection  with  the  silver  doctrine. 

And  the  cause  of  the  decline  in  silver  was  the  same 
as  now,  namely,  a  largely  increased  production,  though 
it  worked  more  slowly  for  two  reasons.  First,  owing  to 
the  fact  that  in  former  times  there  was  a  scarcity  of  both 
gold  and  silver,  and  it  was  not  difficult  to  absorb  as  money 
all  that  could  be  had  of  either;  secondly,  all  movements 
were  slow  a  few  hundred  years  ago;  what  is  now  accom- 
plished within  two  or  three  years  then  required  a  cen- 
uiry.  The  increased  production  of  silver  was  slow,  and 
though  the  quantity  was  comparatively  small,  the  per 
cent,  compared  with  production  in  former  periods  was 
at. 

The  commercial  ratio  of  silver  to  gold  in  the  15th  cen- 
tury was  a  fraction  over  10  to  1.  In  the  17th  century  it 
was  a  fraction  over  15  to  1.  This  was  in  1680. 

"<'oin."  conveniently,  begins  his  table  in  1*!S7,  and  com- 
pletely ignores  the  most  remarkable  change  that  ever  oc- 
curred between  the  metals,  the  most  remarkable  owing  to 
the  general  scarcity  of  money  of  all  kinds,  and  particular- 


46  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

ly  of  the  precious  metals.  And  the  change  is  clearly  di- 
rectly traceable  to  the  ratio  of  production  between  the 
metals. 

On  pages  174  and  175  of  the  report  of  the  Bureau  of  the 
Mint,  1894,  may  be  found  a  table  showing  the  production 
of  both  in  the  15th,  16th  and  17th  centuries.  In  the  early 
part  of  the  15th  century  the  per  centage  of  silver  pro- 
duced was  very  small,  being  from  1493  to  1520  only  $54,- 
703,000,  while  the  production  of  gold  in  the  same  period 
was  |107,931,000.  The  ratio  at  that  time  was  not  far  from 
10  to  1.  But  the  output  of  silver  soon  began  to  largely 
increase,  and  after  1544  the  production  of  gold  began  to 
fall  off.  The  following  table  from  page  175  of  the  report 
shows  the  relative  production  in  value  of  the  metals  dur- 
ing the  period  referred  to : 

Per  Cent,  of  Production. 
Year,  A.  D.  Gold.  Silver. 

1493-1520  66 33 

1521-1544 55 44 

1045-1560 30 69 

1561-1580 26 7:; 

1591-1600 22 78 

1601-1620 : 24 75 

1621-1640  25 74 

1641-1660  27 72 

1661-1680 30 69 

In  1680  the  ratio  of  values  stood  at  something  over 
15  to  1. 

The  above  table  explains  the  cause  of  the  decline  in  sil- 
ver in  that  period,  and  no  argument  is  needed. 

Its  production  largely  increased,  and  that  of  gold  large- 
ly declined.  There  was  no  "demonetization,"  or  "un- 
friendly" silver  legislation  in  that  day.  It  could  have 
been  affected  only  by  the  natural  laws  of  supply  and  de- 
mand. Considering  the  conditions  then  prevailing  the 
decline  was  even  more  remarkable  than  the  decline  of  50 
per  cent,  in  the  value  of  silver  since  1873.  In  the  latter 
period  its  output  became  so  great  that,  owing  to  its  bulk 
and  weight  the  currency  systems  of  the  world  could  not 
absorb  it. 

The  table  referred  to  extends  down  to  the  present  time, 
and,  if  considered  with  reference  to  general  conditions 
and  influences  at  different  periods,  is  an  interesting  study. 
It  gives  convincing  proof  that  a  double  standard  of  money 
value  has  at  all  times  been  uncertain.  No  proof  ought  to 
be  needed  that  such  a  standard,  on  any  basis,  is  now  im- 
possible, owing  to  the  fact  that  there  is  now  a  real  sur- 


I»ni.I..U:s,  <>IJ  WHAT?  -17 

plus  of  silver;  and  anything  of  which  there  is  a  surplus  is 
of  unstable  value  and  purely  speculative,  subject  to  sud- 
den and  violent  fluctuations.  No  such  thing  can  furnish 
a  safe  financial  corner  stone. 

No  country  can  prosper  on  a  money  basis  bobbing  up 
and  down.  There  could  be  no  certain  profit  in  business, 
nor  any  steady  or  satisfactory  remuneration  for  labor, 
with  dollars  worth  60  cents  today,  and  55  or  <>5  cents  to- 
morrow. 

A  silver  standard  in  America  would  make  it  necessary 
for  a  man  each  day  to  wait  the  silver  quotations  from  t  he 
London  market  to  ascertain  how  much  money  he  had,  how 
much  his  neighbor  owed  him,  or  IIOAV  much  he  owed  his 
neighbor.  ATS  to  wages,  or  the  cost  of  living  a  month  or 
year  in  the  future,  he  could  form  small  estimate.  No 
equitable  scale  of  wages  could  be  agreed  on  between  em- 
ployer and  employe.  The  money  would  be  liable  to  go 
down  in  purchasing  value  till  the  workman  could  not  live 
on  his  pay;  or  it  might  go  up  till  it  would  bankrupt  tin* 
employer.  There  could  be  no  confidence  between  t  lie  men 
who  jiive  work  and  those  who  work.  Frequent  adjust- 
ments would  be  a  necessity.  Strikes  and  grievances 
would  multiply;  uncertainty  in  pay  and  profit,  and  dissat- 
isfaction would  become  general. 

If  a  man  insured  his  life  for  the  benefit  of  his  family,  he 
could  make  no  estimate  on  what  they  would  really  get  at 
his  death.  The  sum  might  be  more  than  he  counted,  or 
it  might  be  a  great  deal  loss. 

If  he  sold  his  house,  or  his  farm,  for  a  given  sum,  the 
note  lie  took  in  payment  would  be  in  the  nature  of  a  lot- 
tery ticket;  the  money  might  go  up,  and  the  tinal  payment 
be  more  than  he  expected,  or  it  might  go  down  and  be  less 
than  ho  expected.  If  he  wrere  in  debt  the  rise  might  en- 
able him  to  square  act-omits  with  ease;  or  the  decline 
might  embarrass  or  cripple  him.  lie  miiiht  draw  a  ]>ri/.-- 
or  a  blank. 

it  is  doubtless  unfortunate  for  mankind  that  silver  has 
become  so  abundant  that  it  is  unsteady  in  value,  and  con- 
sequently uncertain  and  unsafe  as  a  basis  of  money.  I1 
is  als-o  unfortunate  for  the  farmer  that  overproduction  and 
competition  have  so  greatly  reduced  the  price  of  wheat: 
but  these  facts  exist,  and  it  is  more  sensible  to  look  them 
squarely  in  the  face,  than  to  theorize,  worry,  and  u 
thinjrs  irer.erullv,  in  a  vain  effort  to  change  them. 


48  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

It  may  be  unfortunate  that  gold  is  now  the  only  money 
metal  that  has  a  safely  steady  value  on  which  present  or 
future  obligations  can  with  equal  safety  be  based,  but 
such  is  the  case;  and  it  does  no  good  to  fret  and  rail  about 
it.  Natural  and  irresistible  agencies,  controlled  by  no 
class  of  men,  brought  about  this  condition;  and,  if  the 
condition  ever  changes,  natural,  and  not  unnatural  agen- 
cies must  bring  the  change.  It  can  not  be  done  by  legis- 
lative edicts  at  Washington. 


EXPORTS  OF  SILVER, 

The  production  of  silver  in  this  country  continues  to 
add  to  our  money  circulation  an  amount  equal  to  the  mar- 
ketable value  of  all  the  metal  mined,  less  the  amount 
used  in  domestic  arts.  The  surplus  is  exported,  and 
either  brings  an  equal  amount  of  gold  into  the  country 
or  keeps  an  equal  amount  of  gold  from  going  out.  In 
1894  we  exported  and  sold  abroad  f  39,555,879  of  domestic 
silver.  This  silver  either  added  or  saved  to  our  currency 
an  equal  amount  of  money.  If  it  had  been  coined  into 
money  and  kept  at  home,  we  should  have  been  obliged  to 
send  abroad  an  equal  amount  of  gold,  unless  we  had  in- 
creased our  indebtedness  to  foreign  lenders.  The  United 
States  does  not  destroy  silver  when  it  quits  coining  the 
metal.  It  is  sold,  and  our  circulation  increased  that 
much.  The  increase  creates  no  apprehension  and  is  sub- 
stantial. It  is  gold,  and  each  dollar  has  an  intrinsic  value 
of  100  cents.  If  the  silver  were  coined  into  dollars  they 
would  add  more  to  the  volume  of  circulation,  but  would 
possess  an  intrinsic  value  no  greater  than  the  export  value 
of  the  metal;  and  its  coinage  would  drive  out  more  gold 
than  the  gain  in  silver  circulation. 


OBSTACLES  IN  THE  WAY  OF  FREE  SILVER. 

If  the  currency  of  the  United  States  were  not  on  a  gold 
basis,  and  there  were  no  gold  in  circulation,  the  free  coin- 
age of  silver  could  be  accomplished  without  sudden  shock 
and  disaster,  because  no  large  part  of  the  money  would  be 
withdrawn  from  circulation,  suddenly  contracting  the 
currency;  and  also  because  there  would  be  no  sudden  and 


DOLLARS.  .)K  WHAT?  49 

violent  unsettling  of  credits  and  values,  and  sudcfen  with- 
drawals of  foreign  capital.  Under  a  well  arranged  note 
system,  based  on  silver,  there  would  be  a  gradual  increase 
in  the  volume  of  money,  and  possibly  a  general  rise  in 
values;  thomgh  so  long  as  the  paper  wrere  within  safe 
limits  higher  prices  would  result  rather  than  from  the 
cheapening  of  silver,  the  basis  of  the  money,  from  in- 
creased over  supply,  than  from  the  actual  volume  of  cur- 
rency put  out.  Under  such  circumstances  the  free  silver 
advocates  could  obtain  their  desire — an  immediate  in- 
crease in  the  money  supply. 

There  are  good  grounds,  however,  for  the  belief  that  t  ho 
United  States  would,  under  any  system  OB  a  silver  basis, 
be  under  serious  disadvantages  as  a  progressive  nation, 
and  that  owing  to  these  disadvantages  its  enterprises 
would  languish;  but  if  we  were  not  on  a  gold  basis,  it 
could  by  free  coinage  doubtless  make  money,  such  as  it 
would  be,  abundant,  without  the  danger  of  serious  dis- 
turbance for  the  time  being,  its  fluctuation  in  value  not 
considered.  (This  assumption,  however,  it  may  be  said 
is  theoretical.) 

This  is  what  the  free  silver  people  desire  to  accomplish. 
But  they  overlook  the  fact  that  $626,000,000  of  our  money 
is~gold,  and  that  this  part  of  it  would  immediately  dis- 
appear, and  by  sudden  contraction,  disastrously  defeat 
their  purpose.  They  ignore  our  foreign  indebtedness  of 
probably  about  $2,000,000,000,  a  large  part  of  which 
would  have  to  be  settled,  and  soon  take  all  the  available 
gold,  and  much  silver  besides. 

These  arc  some  of  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  free  coin- 
It  would  seem  that  they  are  simple  and  clear 
enough  for  reasoning  men  to  see  them.  They  are  so  ap- 
palling that  if  we  should  ignore  them  we  should  become  a 
nation  of  bankrupts  and  the  wonder  of  the  world. 


Free  coinage  of  silver  means  a  silvet  basis,  with  silver  as  the 
only  metallic  money,  and  a  loss  to  the  currency  of  $626,000,000 
"•old. 


.V)  DOLLARS,  OK  WHAT? 


DO  WE  WANT  BIMETALLISM  ? 

There  was  in  the  United  States  on  November  1st,  as 
elsewhere  stated,  approximately  $625,000,000  silver  and 
1626,000,000  gold. 

Shall  we  use  both  the  silver  and  the  gold,  or  shall  we 
use  only  one,  and  get  rid  of  1626,000,000  of  the  other 
money? 

To  use  both  is  bimetallism;  to  use  one  is  monomet- 
allism. Are  we  birnetallists,  or  are  we  nionoinetallists? 

England  is  practically  a  monometallic  country,  since  it 
uses  but  1112,000,000  of  silver,  all  told,  and  that  as  a  lim- 
ited legal  tender.  China,  Japan,  Mexico  and  most  South 
American  countries  are  also  monometallic  countries, 
since  they  use  only  silver.  France  and  Germany  are  bi- 
metallic countries,  both  using  gold  and  silver;  the  latter 
in  larger  quantities  than  England,  and  a  large  per  cent 
of  it  as  full  legal  tender. 

France,  next  to  the  United  States,  uses  more  legal  ten- 
der silver  than  any  other  bimetallic  country,  the  amount 
being  $434,000,000. 

Germany  uses  $215,000,000,  all  told,  only  $105,000,000 
being  legal  tender. 

The  United  States  has  $549,000,000  full  legal  tender  sil- 
ver, $626,000,000  legal  tender  gold,  and  $76,000,000  silver 
half  dollars,  quarters  and  dimes,  which  are  limited  legal 
tender.  Both  kinds  of  money,  under  our  present  laws 
and  policy,  are  good,  and  both  (excepting  the  fractional 
coin)  a  full  legal  tender  for  the  payment  of  debts  to  indi- 
viduals and  of  dues  to  the  government. 

Are  we  satisfied  to  keep  and  use  them  both  in  safe 
quantities  or  are  we  partial  and  obstinate,  and  shall  we 
determine  to  use  but  one  and  drive  the  other  out  of  circu- 
lation and  out  of  the  country? 

I  believe  these  are  needless  questions. 

It  would  be  hard  to  see  what  the  country  could  gain  and 
•  •asy  to  see  what  it  would  lose  by  such  a  course.  The 
masses  of  the  people  of  the  South  and  North — ninety-nine 
in  every  hundred — are  straight  out  bimetallists.  The 
writer  is  a  birnetallist.  He  believes  with  the  ninety-nine 
in  every  hundred  Southern  and  Northern  men,  in  the  use 
of  both  gold  and  silver,  and  all  other  good  money  we  can 


get;  but.  he  does  not  believe  in  using  more  silver  than  ran 
be  handled  with  convenience  to  the  people,  and  safety  to 
the  Government  He  believes  also  that  the  coinage  of 
silver  should  be  regulated  by  its  absorption  as  a  circulat- 
ing medium — by  the  amount  the  people  are  willing  to 
take  and  use,  and  keep  in  circulation — its  idle  accumula- 
tion in  large  sums  in  the  treasury  vaults  being  useless 
and  dangerous  at  the  present  ratio.  lie  does  not  how- 
ever believe  in  schemes  to  force  the  increased  and  in- 
convenient use  of  silver  by  the  withdrawal  from  circula- 
tion of  small  denominations  of  paper  money. 

Xow,  Low  are  we  to  continue  bimetallism?  The  silver 
dollar  circulates  in  the  same  channels  as  the  gold  dollar, 
of  equal  purchasing  and  debt-paying  value. 

But  the  gold  dollar  has  an  intrinsic  and  marketable 
^alue  nearly  double  the  silver  dollar.  It  can  be  melted 
down  and  sold  at  the  rate  of  about  $20  per  ounce,  or  for 
one  hundred  cents,  in  any  country  in  the  world,  but  if  the 
silver  dollar  be  melted  down  it  can  be  sold  for  only  about 
sixty-two  cents  an  ounce  (the  present  market  price),  or 
something  over  fifty  cents.  Then  why  does  the  gold  dol- 
lar circulate  with  the  silver  dollar?  Why  do  not  the  peo- 
ple "melt  down  their  gold  dollars  and  sell  them,  and  keep 
the  dollars  with  less  marketable  value  for  use  in  paying 
obligations  and  making  purchases? 

Is  it  because  the  United  States  has  put  its  dollar  stamp 
on  the  silver  piece? 

Xo.  That  stamp,  of  itself,  does  not  add  the  fraction  of 
a  cent  to  the  value  of  the  silver  piece. 

It  is  because  the  affirmed  policy  of  the  United  States 
makes  its  silver  dollar  interchangeable  with  its  gold  dol- 
lar; and  because  it  undertakes  to  keep  not  less  than 
8100,000,000  in  gold  on  haud,  so  that  it  may  have  an  abun- 
dance of  the  dollars  of  one  hundred  cents  marketable 
value  to  maintain  the  interchangeable  quality  of  its 
cheaper,  fluctuating  silver  money,  and  its  otherwise 
worthless  paper  money.  Thus  we  have  bimetallism  a* 
the  word  is  generally  understood. 

But  it  ought  not  to  be  hard  to  see  that  this  $100,000,000 
gold  reserve  is  already  subject  to  considerable  strain. 
It  supports  all  the  silver,  either  in  the  form  of  coined  sil- 
ver or  paper  silver  certificates,  and  all  other  forms  of 
paper,  making  a  total  of  about  eleven  hundred  million 


52  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

dollars  directly  dependent  on  that  reserve  for  its  full 
face  value. 

Now,  if  under  our  present  financial  system  we  coin  any 
more  silver  we  increase  the  strain  on  the  gold  reserve, 
which  alone  makes  all  our  money  good.  It  is  compara- 
tively a  small  sum,  say  one-eleventh  of  the  money  it  sup- 
ports and  gives  value  to.  It  could  not  have  been  kept 
on  hand  a  week  at  any  time  since  it  was  established  but 
for  the  confidence  the  world  has  in  the  promises  and  in- 
tegrity of  the  Government.  One-eleventh  of  the  fiat 
money  taken  to  the  Treasury  window  would  have  taken 
it  all  out.  But  trusting  the  Government's  integrity  of 
purpose,  and  its  ability  to  maintain  that  gold  reserve, 
none  of  it  was  ever  drawn  upon,  except  for  purely  com- 
mercial purposes,  till  the  Sherman  law  was  passed  in 
1890  providing  for  increased  coinage  of  silver  at  the  rate 
of  $54,000,000  per  annum,  thus  increasing  by  that  amount 
annually  the  strain  on  that  gold  reserre.  Serious  finan- 
cial disturbances  followed.  The  gold  reserve  declined 
rapidly.  The  danger  became  so  great  and  so  imminent 
that  the  Sherman  law  was  repealed  in  1893,  though  with 
great  difficulty,  owing  chiefly  to  obstructive  measures  of 
Senators  from  the  mining  districts  of  the  West,  who 
wanted  to  put  the  country  on  a  silver  basis.  Full  confi- 
dence has  not  yet  returned.  It  was  retarded  by  the 
appearance  of  a  strong  and  determined  free  coinage  ele- 
ment in  the  Fifty-third  Congress. 

Now,  with  these  simple  facts  before  him,  stated  in  a 
straightforward  way,  the  writer  is  sure  that  any  candid 
man  (though  he  may  have  advocated  free  coinage)  must 
admit  that  the  United  States  cannot  coin  any  consider- 
able quantity  more  silver  without  wiping  out  that  gold 
reserve. 

Admitting  this,  we  get  back  to  the  question:  Do  we 
want  bimetallism?  Do  we  want  to  use  both  gold  and 
silver  as  now,  and  have  about  $24*  per  capita  good,  full 
value  money,  or  are  we  willing  to  drive  out  the  gold  for 
the  sake  of  coining  the  product  of  the  Western  mines, 
and  have,  for  a  time  at  least,  only  about  $16  poor  money 
per  capita,  worth  really  only  about  f8  full  value  per 
capita?  We  would  increase  the  $8  per  capita  as  the 
Western  mines  turned  out  silver  and  as  other  countries 


1894  government  reports  estimate  about  S'25  per  capita. 


DOLLABS,  <>K  WHAT?  53 

might  sell  us  their  accumulation  of  the  unwieldy  metal. 
But  we  should  be  so  hopelessly  bankrupted  that  those 
of  us  now  living  would  not  feel  much  concern  as  to  the 
future  supply  of  the  uncertain  and  cumbersome  money. 

That  supply  would  probably  eventually  be  abundant, 
though  depreciating  and  fluctuating,  and  therefore  con- 
stantly unsettling  values  and  trade.  But  in  the  mean- 
time, with  money  on  the  basis  of  $8,  present  purchase 
value,  per  capita,  what  would  become  of  the  people  and 
industries  of  the  United  States — a  people  accustomed 
t<>  >'2±  per  capita,  and  enjoying  credits  to  the  extent  of 
probably  f  15,000,000,000  or  $20,000,000,000*  b*a«ed  di- 
rectly on  that  $24  per  capita  and  on  that  f  100,000,000 
gold  reserve? 

Is  there  a  man  In  America  whose  imagination  would 
not  stagger  under  an  attempt  to  conceive  the  conse- 
quences of  such  a  calamity? 

While  Mexico  and  the  Western  silver  mines  rehabili- 
tated our  currency  with  a  metal  which  the  people  now 
absolutely  refuse  to  accept  in  any  quantity,  and  of  which 
only  about  fifty-six  million  full  legal  tender  dollars  can 
possibly  be  circulated  (a  great  part  of  that  lying  idly  in 
ttie  bank  vaults),  what  would  become  of  the  idle,  penni- 
less men,  women  and  children  of  the  United  States,  with 
creditors  like  wolves  swarming  about  them? 

Is  there  any  man  who  can  read  the  plain,  truthful 
statements  here  made  and  not  understand  them?  And 
if  he  understands  them,  is  he  a  bimetallist,  or  is  he  for 
free  coinage  and  silver  monometallism? 

Of  what  avail  are  such  sophistries,  catching  cartoons, 
ingenious  illustrations,  questionings  and  deceptive  rea- 
sonings as  are  contained  in  "Coin's  Financial  School" 
when  set  against  the  serious  tacts  and  simple,  naked 
truths  of  the  real  situation?  It  is  little  less  than  criminal 
to  deal  in  sophistries  and  artful  deceptions  when  suck 
momentous  interests  are  at  stake. 

We  want  bimetallism,  and  not  silver  monometallism. 


'Including  individual  indebted ne>*  credits  ;uv  estimated  at  ?  40,000,000,000. 


54  DOLLAKS,  OK  WHAT  ? 


FREE  COINAGE  NOT  FREE  DISTRIBUTION. 

Suppose  it  be  admitted  that  the  free  coinage  of  silver 
would  be  a  blessing,  and  would  at  once  increase  the  vol- 
ume of  money  in  the  country  as  a  whole — in  what  way 
would  it  increase  the  supply  in  individual  pockets? 

How  would  it  even  increase  the  supply  in  non-silver 
producing  sections? 

Free  silver  does  not  mean  that  the  government  would 
coin  and  send  it  about  the  country  on  pack  horses  and  in 
wagons  inviting  every  man  to  help  himself.  There  will 
be  no  "forty  acres  and  a  mule"  distribution,  unless  it  be 
to  the  Western  miners,  at  the  end  of  this  free  silver  fight. 
no  matter  how  it  may  terminate. 

The  metal  is  produced  in  the  mining  sections  of  the 
West.  The  people  who  mine  it  would  have  the  privilege 
of  sending  it  to  the  government  mints  and  getting  it 
coined  into  money.  When  coined  it  would  belong  to 
them. 

They  would  not  scatter  it  around  among  their  friends 
in  Georgia,  South  Carolina  and  Illinois.  They  would 
take  it  back  to  Montana  and  Colorado. 

If  vast  quantities  of  silver  were  mined  the  people  out 
West  might  accumulate  vast  quantities  of  money.  The 
"silver  bugs"  of  that  section  might  become  as  rich  and 
obnoxious  as  the  "gold  bugs"  of  the  East.  Denver  might 
become  a  great  money  center,  but  what  advantage  would 
that  be  to  the  people  of  Alabama  or  Michigan? 

There  is  already  idle  money  by  the  hundreds  of  millions 
in  some  sections  of  the  country,  but  the  people  of  other 
sections  cannot  get  it  because  they  buy  about  as  much 
as  they  sell,  and  have  no  favorable  balance  of  trade  to 
bring  it  to  them. 

If  the  silver  barons  of  the  West  were  multiplied  by  the 
score,  and  if  all  the  followers  of  the  mining  camps  were 
to  grow  rich  and  great,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  the 
farmers  of  Mississippi  or  Ohio  would  be  benefited  any 
more  than  they  are  now  benefited  by  the  vast  accumula- 
tions of  money  stored  in  the  vaults  of  Eastern  banks. 

If  every  tenth  man  in  Colorado  were  made  a  million- 
aire, and  the  fortunes  of  all  were  in  cash,  that  accuinula- 


S.  oil   WHAT?  r>-> 

tion  of  money  could  no  more  put  up  prices  than  does  the 
present  hoards  in  the  East. 

The  truth  is  that  the  supply  of  money  has  little  to  do 
with  prices,  which  are  based  on  the  cost  of  production, 
but  regulated  by  supply  and  demand.  They  are  affected 
also  by  the  state  of  credits. 

Prosperity,  which  stimulates  prices,  depends  upon  safe 
.-red its  more  than  upon  the  volume  of  money. 

Money  may  be  abundant,  and  prosperity  wholly  lack- 
ing: but  credit  cannot  be  abundant  without  prosperity. 

Confidence,  which  is  the  basis  of  credit,  increases  the 
use  and  active  supply  of  money.  It  is  also  a  great  dis- 
•  utor  of  money,  a  great  equalizer  of  its  circulation. 

The  advocates  of  inflation,  whether  by  free  coinage  of 
silver,  or  other  methods,  destroy  confidence  and  thus  de- 
si  i-oy  the  only  rational  means  of  securing  what  they  real- 
ly want,  an  active  increase  of  the  volume  of  money  in  the 
channels  of  trade. 

They  get  hold  of  the  wrong  horn  of  the  dilemma.  They 
propose  an  artificial  and  consequently  unsafe  increase 
:n  the  money  supply,  believing  that  they  can  thus  in- 
•  rease  the  circulation  and  put  up  prices. 

The  plan  inevitably  works  the  wrong  way.  Too  many 
distrust  the  scheme. 

The  money  is  locked  up,  nobody  wants  to  invest,  or  to 
l»uy  beyond  actual  needs,  and  prices  go  down  instead 

up. 

'  Then  the  stump  orator  comes  upon  the  scene,  abuses 
the  "gold  bugs/'  and  lays  the  consequences  of  this  folly 
at  the  door  of  the  "money  power." 


Fice  silver  would  reduce  by  half  the  value   of  all  pensions, 
:S,  life  insurance  payments,  bank  deposits,  and  other  evidences 
of  credit. 

GOLD  STANDARD  AND  PROSPERITY. 

Free  silver  orators  and  writers  claim  t  hat  we  have  tried 
the  gold  standard  since  1STS,  and  thai  things  have  gradu- 
ally grown  woi-se,  and  that  it  is  now  time  to  try  some- 
thing else,  meaning  free  silver.  This  statement  is  untrue 


56  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

in  every  particular.  The  period  from  1878  to  1890  was 
in  all  respects  the  most  prosperous  in  the  history  of  the 
country.  The  increase  in  population,  the  industrial 
growth,  the  influx  of  foreign  capital  and  the  expansion 
of  enterprise  was  not  merely  extraordinary,  it  was  mar- 
velous. It  was  a  development  never  equaled,  or  even  ap- 
proached, in  any  country  in  the  history  of  the  world.  In 
1878  the  West  was  practically  unsettled  and  undevel- 
oped. Since  then  its  broad  acres  have  been  brought  un- 
der cultivation,  and  its  hamlets  have  become  populous 
and  prosperous  cities.  In  1878  the  South  practically  had 
neither  capital  nor  manufacturing  industries.  Its  iron 
and  coal  were  almost  untouched;  its  railroads  were  lack- 
ing in  traffic,  in  bad  repair,  without  substantial  equip- 
ment or  organization,  and  for  eighteen  years  there  had 
been  little  new  construction.  In  those  twelve  years  three 
and  a  half  times  as  many  cotton  mills  were  built  in  the 
South  as  were  built  during  the  previous  one  hundred 
years.  The  increase  of  spindles  was  more  than  350  per 
cent.  More  capital  was  invested  in  mining  and  iron  pro- 
duction, ten  times  over,  than  in  the  previous  history  of 
the  country  since  its  settlement.  The  same  activity  and 
energy  prevailed  in  all  lines  of  industry.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  West  and  Northwest  was  not  less  wonderful. 
Denver,  Kansas  City,  St.  Paul,  Minneapolis,  Detroit  and 
Milwaukee  grew  from  townships  to  big  cities;  the  popu- 
lation of  Chicago  grew  from  a  few  hundred  thousand  to 
a  million  of  inhabitants.  The  North  also  enjoyed  un- 
equaled  prosperity.  In  that  period  our  stock  of  gold  in- 
creased from  $213,000,000  to  f 690,000,000,  a  net  increase 
of  $477,000,000;  our  stock  of  silver  increased  from  $87,- 
000,000  to  $440,000,000,  a  net  increase  of  $353,000,000. 
Deposits  in  State  and  National  banks  increased  from 
$800,000,000  to  $2,200,000,000,  showing  in  twelve  years 
the  unprecedented  increase  of  nearly  300  per  cent,  in  the 
savings  and  accumulations  of  the  people.  And  in  the 
same  period  the  bonded  debt  of  the  United  States,  about 
which  the  free  silver  men  make  so  much  noise,  was  re- 
duced from  nearly  $1,800,000,000  to  about  $600,000,000, 
a  great  reduction  of  two-thirds  or  say,  about  $1,200,000,- 
000  of  the  interest  bearing  debt  of  the  country.  The 
credit  of  the  nation  was  so  improved  that  the  rate  of  in- 
terest on  government  bonds  was  reduced  from  a  five  per 
cent  to  a  three  per  cent,  basis.  Throughout  the  country, 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  57 

as  a  whole,  prosperity  reigned,  and  if  the  people  were 
not  satisfied  with  the  condition  it  was  because  content- 
ment is  not  the  lot  of  humanity. 

It  is  certain  that  the  Western  silver  barons  were  dis- 
gruntled through  all  these  years,  the  brightest  in  the  an- 
nals of  any  people,  and  they  were  persistently  and  surely 
undermining  the  confidence  which  made  such  magnificent 
growth  and  prosperity  possible.  Their  movements  were 
watched  with  keen  and  anxious  interest  the  world  over 
by  the  men  of  capital  and  enterprise,  who  had  set  the 
busy  wheels  of  progress  in  motion.  In  1890  they  forced 
the  passage  of  the  Sherman  law,  the  baneful  effect  of 
which  almost  criminal  blunder  is  fully  explained  in  other 
articles  in  this  work,  and  is  known  to  the  whole  world. 
Prosperity  and  progress  were  soon  at  an  end.  The  coun- 
try was  no  longer  safely  on  a  gold  basis.  Distrust,  un- 
certainty and  stagnation  supplanted  hope,  confidence 
and  activity. 

The  free  silver  people  claim  that  if  the  Sherman  law 
was  the  cause  of  these  misfortunes  that  its  repeal  in  1893 
ought  to  have  removed  them.  Such  argument  is  extreme- 
ly foolish.  It  is  a  fact  well  known  to  the  world  that  the 
Fifty-third  Congress  was  practically  a  free  silver  body. 
The  failure  of  a  bill  to  sustain  the  faith  and  credit  of  the 
government  was  greeted  with  cheers  from  members  in 
the  lower  house.  It  is  also  loudly  and  vociferously  her- 
alded by  free  silver  advocates  that  the  doctrine  is  spread- 
ing and  taking  deeper  root  in  all  parts  of  the  land.  With 
our  gold  standard  so  vigorously  assailed  since  the  day 
the  Sherman  law  was  repeapled,  and  its  very  existence 
in  such  grave  doubt,  no  well  informed,  well  balanced  man 
would  argue  that  the  country  is,  or  has  been  since  1893, 
in  position  to  further  test  the  merits  of  the  gold  standard. 
But  as  any  candid  man  must  admit,  its  merits  were  fully 
tested  from  1878  to  1890,  and  with  results  that  amazed 
mankind.  But  in  1890,  as  stated,  its  existence  was  threat- 
ened, and  that  folly  also  amazed  mankind,  excepting  only 
the  advocates  of  free  silver. 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 


THE  LOSSES  OF  1393. 

It  has  been  claimed  that  the  banks  "combined''  to  raid 
the  Treasury  and  bring  on  the  panic  of  1893.  It  ought 
not  be  necessary  to  combat. this  absurd  contention,  but 
so  many  people  believe  it  to  be  true  that  it  may  not  be 
amiss  to  show  who  sustained  the  losses  of  that  calamity. 

The  New  York  Herald  estimated,  from  actual  market 
quotations,  that  within  a  short  time  the  shrinkage  in  the 
value  of  stocks  and  bonds  listed  on  the  New  York  Stock 
Exchange  was  $700,000,000.  These  stocks  were  largely 
owned  or  held  by  banks  as  collateral  for  loans.  Scores 
of  operators  in  Wall  street  were  beggared.  Nearly  700 
banks  throughout  the  country,  many  of  which  afterward 
became  wholly  insolvent  from  sudden  shrinkage  of  as- 
sets, were  forced  to  close  doors.  Capitalists  and  investors 
suffered  in  proportion.  The  total  losses  directly  and  in- 
directly sustained  by  the  monied  interests  of  the  country 
amounted  to  thousands  of  millions.  Banks  that  did  not 
fail,  lost  heavily,  suffering  in  many  instances  serious  im- 
pairment of  capital.  Deposits  shrunk  from  25  to  75  per 
cent,  and  banking  for  a  time,  to  say  nothing  of  losses, 
was  wholly  without  profit;  and  owing  to  general  stagna- 
tion and  uncertainty,  there  has  since  been  no  money  in 
the  business. 

Even  the  free  silver  advocate  does  not  claim  that  the 
bankers  and  capitalists  of  the  country  are  fools.  Yet  this 
is  the  only  conclusion  if  they  really  "combined"  to  bring 
on  that  panic.  Such  losses  surely  follow  all  panics,  and 
nobody  understands  this  so  well  as  the  man  who  handles 
money. 

To  stay  the  general  disaster  at  the  time,  the  New  York 
banks  imperiled  their  own  safety  by  loaning  money  to 
banks  in  every  part  of  the  Union.  I  doubt  whether  there 
wrould  have  been  a  dozen  banks  with  open  doors  in  Ten- 
nessee if  aid  from  the  New  York  "gold  bugs"  had  been 
refused,  and  the  ruin  of  business  men  and  borrowers  of 
all  classes  would  have  been  complete.  What  is  said  of 
Tennessee  was  true  in  greater  or  less  degree  of  all  South- 
ern and  Western  states.  The  "gold  bugs"  used  clearing 
house  certificates  at  home,  and  at  great  risk  sent  good 
money  throughout  the  land  in  answer  to  the  general  cry 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  59 

<>f  distress.  These  facts  are  well  known  to  every  well 
posted  man.  The  writer  believes  that  these  bankers  have 
made  some  mistakes  in  policy,  as  all  men  do;  but  what- 
ever  their  errors  of  judgment,  they  have  never  "con- 
spired" against  the  government  or  people,  and  the  free 
silver  sections  of  the  South  and  West  owe  them  a  debt 
of  gratitude  that  must  remain  long  unsettled. 

It  may  be  added  that  the  reason  bank  men,  almost  as 
a  unit,  oppose  free  silver,  is  not  that  they  wrant  to  "con- 
spire" against  anybody,  but  because  they  so  thoroughly 
understand  the  disaster  that  would  follow.  They  know 
that  its  increased  coinage  under  the  Sherman  act  brought 
the  panic  of  1893.  TJhey  do  not  guess  or  think  that  this 
was  the  cause,  but  they  know  that  it  was.  And  they  do 
not  want  any  more  silver  panics,  particularly  not  a  free 
silver  panic,  which  they  also  know  would  be  the  worst 
of  all.  They  know  that  they  could  not  stand  the  conse- 
quent losses,  and  they  know  that  the  people  could  not 
stand  them.  The  only  selfish  motive  they  have  in  trying 
to  maintain  the  present  gold  standard  is  to  restore  pros- 
perity to  the  country,  and  consequently  to  restore  their 
former  earnings  and  profits.  This  is  a  kind  of  selfishness 
common  to  all  men. 

"This  article  is  not  intended  in  any  sense  as  a  vindica- 
tion of  hankers  and  monied  men,  but  merely  to  remove 
mistaken  notions  which  are  in  the  way  of  sound  money 
legislation. 

Men  send  for  a  doctor  when  they  are  sick,  a  lawyer 
when  they  want  legal  redress,  a  preacher  when  they  want 
spiritual  comfort,  a  plumber  when  the  water  pipe  bursts; 
they  go  to  an  architect  when  they  want  to  build  a  house, 
send  the  horse  to  the  blacksmith  when  they  want  him 
shod,  engage  a  gardener  to  turn  the  ground  and  plant 
-<M'd,  and  hire  a  rail  splitter  when  the  farm  needs  fencing; 
but  when  finances  get  out  of  joint,  they  abuse  and  turn  a 
deaf  ear  to  the  men  who  handle  the  money  and  know 
most  about  it.  Thej"e  is  a  flaw  somewrhere  in  this  general 
•>  ay  of  doing  things.  It  might  be  well  for  awhile  as  an 
experiment  to  have  the  lawyers  shoe  the  horses  and  the 
rail  splitters  dose  the  sick.  If  the  shoes  pinched  and  the 
patients  languished,  these  things  would  be  in  keeping 
with  the  clumsy  tinkering  and  patching  by  novices  of  the 
ion's  fina in  • 


60  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 


THE  MONEY  POWER. 

Suppose,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  we  admit  the  false 
notion  that  the  "money  power"  is  unreasonably  preju- 
diced against  silver.  Is  a  remedy  possible  if  applied  only 
in  the  United  States?  And  how  can  any  legal  remedy 
be  applied?  Money  cannot  be  legislated  out  of  bank 
vaults  at  home  and  abroad,  and  out  of  the  pockets  of  the 
people,  and  put  into  circulation  in  the  United  States.  We 
are  not  necessarily  a  borrowing  people,  and  whether  that 
policy  be  right  or  wrong  we  are  not  in  condition,  nor  in 
position,  to  put  a  stop  to  borrowing.  We  must  have  for- 
eign money,  and  also  the  use  of  home  accumulations,  to 
carry  our  obligations  and  to  develop  our  resources.  But 
can  we  pass  laws  to  make  Englishmen  send  over  money 
to  build  our  railroads;  to  make  home  capitalists  build 
and  operate  furnaces,  mills,  open  mines  and  buy  our  sur- 
plus lands,  and  to  make  lenders  discount  our  notes  and 
accept  our  bills? 

When  we  agitate  and  approach  free  coinage  all  these 
people  lock  their  money  up.  Home  money  lenders  are 
alarmed  and  foreign  capitalists  look  upon  us  with  con- 
tempt. Industrial  progress  comes  to  a  standstill.  We 
may  fuss  and  fume  and  beat  the  air  all  we  are  a  mind  to, 
but  our  impotent  fury  merely  closes  the  money  chests 
tighter.  The  people  we  rail  at  are  not  merely  the  Roths- 
childs, a  few  great  financial  concerns  in  England,  and  a 
few  thousand  bankers  in  America.  That  vague,  greatly 
abused  and  'little  understood  thing,  the  "money  power," 
is  a  mightier  force  than  even  the  populists  claim  that  it 
is.  It  is  the  PEOPLE — the  millions  of  intelligent,  thrifty 
and  prudent  people  who  have  put  aside  the  accumula- 
tions of  their  industry.  Every  man  who  has  saved  and 
owns  money,  whether  the  sum  be  $ 100  or  $100,000,  or  who 
holds  the  notes  of  his  neighbor,  who  is  a  depositor  in  a 
savings  bank,  or  who  is  an  investor  in  securities,  state 
bonds  or  mortgages,  is  one  of  the  "money  power."  If  his 
hoard  be  only  $100  he  is  as  easily  frightened  and  runs  to 
cover  as  quickly  as  the  man  with  a  million.  He  is,  indeed, 
more  apt  to  lock  his  money  up  and  put  it  entirely  out  of 
sight  and  out  of  reach  than  the  larger  and  broader  holder. 
If  you  have  anything  to  sell,  you  cannot  sell  it  to  him. 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  61 

Price  ronnts  for  nothing.  If  you  ask  him  to  join  you  in 
an  enterprise,  he  laughs  at  you.  If  you  would  borrow  of 
him,  he  shies  at  your  collateral.  He  may  not  be  learned 
in  t«he  science  of  money.  He  may  tell  you  that  he  knows 
nothing  about  the  financial  question,  but  he  knows  how 
to  make  you  pay  if  you  owe  him;  and  if  you  scare  him, 
In-  knows  how  to  lock  up  his  money  and  keep  it. 

He  may  be  a  populist  or  a  free  silver  advocate — many 
of  these  I  have  observed  grip  the  purse  strings  tightest, 
and  they  generally  grab  for  gold  when  they  put  money 
into  holes  or  stockings — but  whatever  he  be,  he  is  one  of 
that  mighty  army  composing  the  "money  power."  There 
are  some  six  or  eight  millions  of  them.  They  fill  every 
vocation  and  avenue  of  life.  They  are  lawyers,  doctors, 
artisans,  merchants,  laborers,  farmers,  preachers,  beg- 
gars, guardians,  trustees,  executors,  capitalists,  men  and 
women,  old  and  young.  They  own  the  stocks  of  the  sav- 
ings banks,  the  national  banks,  trust  companies  and  other 
corporations;  own  the  money  deposits;  and  the  officers 
of  these  institutions  are  merely  the  paid  instruments 
used  by  them.  If  they  heap  money  upon  bank  counters, 
these  custodians  of  their  earnings  must  use  great  care 
and  discretion  in  the  keeping  and  disposition  of  their 
funds.  If  they  want  the  money  they  have  committed  i« 
the  care  of  the  banks,  whether  to  invest  or  to  hoard,  it 
must  always  be  ready  for  them.  The  banker  is  branded 
with  incompetence  and  disgrace,  or  with  dereliction  of 
duty  and  sent  to  prison,  if  he  cannot  pay.  This  is  the 
"money  power"  that  cornered  money  and  brought  on 
1  lie  money  panic  of  1893.  Whatever  may  be  the  precipi- 
tating cause,  it  is  the  "power"  that  brings  on  all  finan- 
cial disturbances.  It  is  the  "power"  which  now  dis- 
1 1- lists  the  financial  policy  of  the  United  States.  It  is  the 
"power"  which  believes  there  is  more  silver  in  the  mines 
of  the  world  than  can  be  safely  used  as  money  by  the 
United  States  without  driving  out  its  better  money — 
uold — and  which  fears  great  disaster  from  further  silver 
legislation.  It  is  a  "power"  which  cannot  be  driven  nor 
legislated  into  buying  and  selling,  lending,  building  and 
developing.  It  will  stand  stock  still  till  it  -els  ready 
to  move.  Kailery,  threats  and  denunciation  do  not  budge 
it.  It  is  the  power  of  human  avarice  and  self-preserva- 
tion. Show  it  gain,  confidence,  stability,  and  it  welcomes 
you.  Threaten  it  with  free  coinage  of  silver  and  depre- 


62  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

elated  money  and  it  draws  away  in  alarm,  yet  grim  and 
resolute. 

Since  this  almighty  "money  power"  is  afraid  of  free 
silver,  and  will  again  and  indefinitely  arrest  every  in- 
dustry and  enterprise  in  the  country  if  that  heresy  be 
threatened  or  instituted,  what  folly  and  madness  to  fly 
in  the  face  of  it! 

We  want  prosperity,  and  we  cannot  have  it  unless  we 
fully  satisfy  the  people  who  have  money  to  invest, 
whether  in  small  or  large  sums. 

The  free  silver  people  do  not  look  at  the  practical  con- 
dition and  situation  of  things.  They  have  a  theory,  and 
reason  in  the  abstract  They  block  progress  and  distress 
the  country  exploiting  that  theory.  They  would  with- 
draw the  corner  stone  of  thousands  of  millions  of  credits 
and  topple  the  whole  financial  and  commercial  structure 
experimenting  with  that  theory.  Practical  men  know 
that  it  is  a  mere  theory,  vicious  and  dangerous.  It  is  a 
catching  theory,  because  with  it  is  coupled  abuse  of  the 
"money  power,"  which  so  many  voters  fail  utterly  to 
comprehend.  The  voter  himself  may  be  an  important 
factor  in  the  "money  power,"  yet  unable  to  understand 
it — be  filled  with  prejudice  and  resentment  against  it 
Any  of  us  who  are  industrious  and  thrifty,  and  who  Jiave 
saved  money,  are  part  of  that  much  abused  and  really 
potential  "power." 

Will  a  large  per  cent  of  the  voters  of  the  country  con- 
tinue to  blindly  follow  these  free  coinage  theorists,  or 
have  they  had  enough  of  them  and  of  the  disasters  that 
follow  in  their  wake? 

If  we  want  to  start  our  mills  and  give  life  to  our  enter- 
prises, they  furnish  us  no  money  writh  which  to  do  these 
things.  The  worst  and  loudest  of  them  merely  want  our 
votes  and  the  fat  offices  we  can  give  them.  It  is  to  the 
"money  power"  we  must  look  for  the  means  of  paying 
our  labor  and  handling  our  products.  If  we  want  to  sell 
a  farm,  a  horse,  a  crop  of  wheat,  a  bale  of  cotton,  a  town 
lot,  we  never  think  of  the  free  coinage  orator,  but  go  to 
some  person  who  belongs  to  the  "money  power"  and 
strike  him  for  a  trade.  Let  us  make  friends  writh  these 
people,  and  cast  out  utterly  the  theorists  and  designing 
demagogues,  who  would  destroy  us,  professing  (for  our 
votes)  to  love  us,  and  to  be  infinitely  concerned  for  us. 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  M 

"PRIVILEGES  "OF  NATIONAL  BANKS. 

National  Banks  have  no  "privileges,"  in  the  sense  that 
they  are  a  favored  class  of  institutions.  During,  and  for 
a  time  subsequent  to  the  war  period,  when  government 
i.:>nds  were  low  priced,  and  bore  high  rates  of  interest, 
there  was  a  good  profit  in  National  bank  note  circula- 
tion, but  that  day  has  passed;  and  there  is  now  a  well 
denned  loss  to  the  National  banks  in  the  exercise  of  their 
"privileges."  This  has  been  the  case  for  a  good  many 
years. 

To  issue  |45,000  circulation  now,  a  bank  must  invest 
$57,000  of  its  capital  in  United  States  bonds,  to  be  de- 
posited with  the  United  States  Treasury  to  secure  its 
circulation.  This  estimate  is  based  on  four  per  cent, 
bonds  at  1.14,  about  an  average  price  for  eighteen 
months. 

The  bank  must  then  deposit  $2,250  with  the  Treasurer 
to  the  credit  of  a  fund  known  as  the  five  per  cent,  redemp- 
tion fund,  leaving  it  the  use  of  $42,750  on  an  investment 
of  $57,000.  Therefore  it  loses  entirely  the  use  of  $14,250 
of  its  capital.  Money  is  worth  eight  per  cent,  throughout 
theJSouth  and  West,  and  in  other  localities.  Counting 
interest  at  eight  per  cent  the  loss  on  this  item  annually 
is  $1,140. 

The  four  per  cent,  bonds  mature  in  1907 — twelve  years 
hence.  At  maturity  the  face  value  only  will  be  paid. 
Therefore  in  twelve  years  the  bank  loses  $7,000  premium 
it  paid  for  the  bonds.  The  annual  loss  on  this  item  is 
$583. 

There  is  a  tax  of  one  per  cent,  on  the  circulation.  The 
loss  on  this  account  is  annually  $450. 

These  thro;'  items  constitute  the  principal  cost  of  the 
National  banking  "privileges." 

There  is  but  one  item  of  profit,  which  is  the  interest 
on  the  bonds.  This  for  twelve  months  is  $2,000. 

Therefore,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  the  account  stands 
as  follows: 

Interest  on  the  $14,250  item $1,140 

Annual  loss  on  the  $7,000  premium  item 

Tax  on  circulation...  450 


Total  lo,< >::.  17:i 

-30,000  bonds 2,0<>0 


Net  loss  to  hank 17:'. 


64  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

Counting  the  $14,250  item  on  a  basis  of  six  per  cent., 
there  would  be  an  apparent  profit  of  $112;  but  it  would 
be  apparent  only.  Other  items  of  expense  incident  to 
the  system  would  much  more  than  wipe  it  out.  But  I 
base  the  estimate  on  eight  per  cent.,  as  it  is  in  the  East 
only  and  in  the  money  centers  that  lower  rates  prevail. 

Other  items  of  cost  are  National  bank  examiners'  fees, 
|50  per  year,  if  two  examinations  are  made;  the  adver- 
tising of  five  annual  statements;  the  exchange  and  ex- 
press charges  in  keeping  intact  the  $2,250  redemption 
fund,  and  in  transportation  of  new  issues  of  notes;  loss 
in  circulation  while  new  notes  are  in  process  of  substitu- 
tion for  old,  or  mutilated  notes;  attention  and  labor  in 
making  various  reports,  and  other  items  of  direct  or  in- 
direct cost  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  "privilege"  costs  a 
National  bank,  issuing  $45,000  currency,  directly,  not 
less  than  $350  per  annum. 

If  the  bank  has  a  large  line  of  deposits  the  cost  is  much 
more,  owing  to  increased  work  in  making  examinations 
and  reports 

In  reserve  cities  banks  are  also  required  to  carry 
twenty-five  per  cent,  reserve,  their  own  notes,  and  other 
specified  moneys  and  sight  exchange  not  counting  as 
part  of  this  reserve.  The  class  of  assets  they  carry  and 
the  kind  of  paper  they  discount  is  also  prescribed  by  law 
or  regulation. 

A  State  bank,  with  equal  capital  and  deposits,  can 
make  more  money  than  a  National  bank.  As  at  present 
constituted,  the  National  banking  system  is  a  decaying 
system,  and  no  new  National  banks  would  be  organized 
but  for  the  reason  that  the  people  trust  them  more  than 
they  do  State  banks,  and  the  more  readily  patronize 
them.  And  this  is  an  anomaly,  considering  the  general 
prejudice  against  them. 

It  is  readily  seen  that  it  is  a  mistaken  prejudice.  It 
is  one  that  would  soon  disappear  if  the  facts  were  known. 
As  recently  stated  by  the  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce 
and  Commercial  Bulletin,  this  prejudice  has  much  to  do 
with  the  free  silver  sentiment  of  the  South  and  other 
sections,  and  if  pains  were  taken  by  the  press  to  publish 
the  simple  facts,  and  make  them  generally  understood, 
the  most  serious  difficulty  in  the  way  of  a  simple  and 
proper  revision  of  our  currency  system  would  be  removed. 


DOLLARS,  (ill  WHAT? 

The  great  "crime"'  of  the  age  had  not  then  been  com- 
mitted. Silver  had  not  then  been  "demonetized."  And 
I  have  sometimes  thought  what  a  happy  circumstance  it 
would  have  been  if  some  of  the  "friends"  of  silver  had 
lived  at  that  time,  when  nobody  had  ever  thought  of  "dis- 
criminating" against  their  cherished  metal.  But  the 
prices  then  would  have  been  harrowing  to  their  souls, 
free  coinage  and  silver  at  a  premium  considered.  "Prices" 
are  a  great  worry  to  the  "friends"  of  silver,  as,  indeed, 
they  are  to  all  the  rest  of  us.  Even  corn  at  45  tvnts  a 
bushel  and  labor  at  90  cents  a  day,  with  "demonetized" 
silver,  vexes  them  beyond  measure;  and  it  would  not  be 
safV  to  say  what  might  have  been  the  effect  of  Peffer, 
Si cwart  and  Bland,  for  instance,  if  they  had  seen  fre" 
silver,  with  farm  wages  $5  per  month  and  corn  20  cents  a 
bushel.  But  the  writer  trusts  he  may  be  pardoned  the 
wish,  which  ought  not  be  an  unkind  one,  that  these  three, 
and  a  few  others,  had  indeed  been  of  that  generation. 
Possibly  some  of  them  were  living  in  those  days;  but  if 
so,  free  and  high  price  silver  and  corn  at  20  cents  must 
have  cost  them  many  serious  and  painful  reflections, 
which,  however,  they  have  doubtless  forgotten.  Silver  at 
l&to  1  was  more  valuable  than  gold  (there  being  mined 
then  several  thousand  million  dollars  less  than  now),  but 
i  here  were  no  sky-scraping  prices  of  farm  products,  which 
is  a  curious  circumstance,  from  the  Stewart-Peffer  point 
of  view. 


SILVER  AND  WHEAT. 

The  world's  production  of  wheat  has  grown  from  two 
thousand  four  hundred  and  thirty-three  million  bushels 
in  1891  to  two  thousand  six  hundred  and  forty-five  million 
bushels  in  189-1.  This  is  a  gain  in  supply  of  two  hundred 
and  twelve  million  bushels.  But  a  more  significant  fact, 
and  one  of  greater  concern  to  American  agriculturalists, 
is  that  the  wheat  exporting  countries  of  South  America 
and  Kussia  have  in  this  period  gained  two  hundred  and 
fifty-six  million  bushels  in  wheat  product  ion.  That  is  to 
say,  in  1*9  I  Kussia  and  South  America  had  two  hundred 
and  fifty-six  million  bushels  more  wheat  to  sell  in  compe- 
tition with  the  wheat  of  the  Tinted  States  than  they  had 
in  1891.  And  a  matter  of  still  greater  significance  and 


34  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

concern  is  that  the  large  export  surplus  of  fifty  million 
bushels  of  the  Argentine  Kepublic  last  year  was  produced 
at  a  cost  estimated  not  to  exceed  thirty-four  to  thirty- 
seven  cents  per  bushel  laid  down  at  the  seaboard  shipping 
point.*  Considering  these  facts,  and  the  enormous  crop 
harvested  in  the  United  States  in  1894,  is  it  necessary  for 
the  American  farmer  to  puzzle  his  brain  for  an  explana- 
tion of  the  low  price  of  wheat?  Is  silver  somehow  at  the 
bottom  of  it,  as  is  foolishly  stated  in  "Coin's  Financial 
School,"  or  is  it  a  tremendous  overproduction  and  a  com- 
pletely glutted  market?  Is  it  the  "crime"  against  the 
product  of  the  Western  silver  mines,  represented  by  Stew- 
art, Peffer,  and  associates,  or  is  it  the  result  of  the  open- 
ing up  and  cultivation  of  vast  new  tracts  of  the  Lord's 
bountiful  earth? 

There  was  more  coined  silver  and  more  idle  money  of 
all  kinds  in  the  United  States  in  1894,  when  wheat  touched 
its  lowest  price,  than  ever  before.  The  New  York  Times, 
of  March  25th,  1895,  from  which  the  statistics  are  taken, 
commenting  on  the  effect  of  over-production  on  prices, 
says: 

"The  natural  effect  of  such  increase,  in  exporting  coun- 
tries, on  prices,  can  easily  be  seen.  It  may  be  noted, 
also,  that  Russia  has  an  export  surplus  of  192,000,000 
bushels  of  rye,  against  70,000,000  bushels  a  year  ago." 

This  item  of  122,000,000  bushels  increased  surplus  of  a 
cereal  largely  substituted  for  wheat  in  many  countries 
has  been  an  important  factor  in  determining  prices. 

The  depression  of  business  and  the  blocking  of  all  kinds 
of  enterprise  on  account  of  silver  agitation  has  also  con- 
tributed something  toward  depressing  w^heat  People 
cannot  buy  bread  freely  unless  they  have  work.  Capital, 
too,  has  been  timid  of  investment  in  wheat,  as  in  every- 
thing else;  and  the  withdrawal  of  this  sustaining  influ- 
ence has  been  an  important  factor  in  the  sagging  of  prices 
of  all  commodities. 


•Eetimatee  by  the  New  York  Times. 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  35 


SILVER  AND  COFFEE. 

Reversing  the  order  of  wheat  and  cotton,  coffee  has 
advanced  gradually  and  enormously  during  the  past  ten 
years. 

The  writer,  being  at  the  time  in  the  wholesale  grocery 
business,  remembers  that  about  1885  he  bought  coffee  in 
Xew  York  at  about  7  cents  per  pound  for  fair  grades.  It 
is  now  worth  about  18  cents  per  pound. 

Silver  was  worth  $1.06  per  ounce  in  1885.  It  is  worth 
a  little  over  60  cents  per  ounce  now.  If  the  price  of  silver 
regulates  the  prices  of  other  things,  why  has  coffee  gun.- 
up  nearly  300  per  cent,  in  ten  years  and  silver  gone  down 
nearly  50  per  cent.? 

The  explanation  is  simple,  and  is  the  simple  explana- 
tion that  applies  to  the  rise  and  fall  of  wheat,  corn,  cotton 
and  all  other  products,  whether  of  the  mine,  the  mill  or 
the  farm. 

The  production  and  supply  of  coffee  in  1885  was  ex- 
•vc.  More  coffee  was  produced  than  the  world  could 
well  consume.  High  prices  in  former  years  had  greatly 
stimulated  its  production,  and  an  undue  number  of  peo- 
ple went  into  coffee  growing.  The  increasing  supply 
overstocked  the  markets,  and  prices  gradually  declined. 

And  when  they  got  so  low  that  coffee  production  be- 
came unprofitable,  the  industry  was  abandoned  by  many 
producers.  The  supply  was  gradually  reduced,  and  stim- 
ulated by  short  crops,  coffee  went  up.  Another  period 
of  low  prices  in  coffee,  brought  about  from  the  sa  nit- 
causes,  is  likely  after  a  time  to  set  in. 

The  decline  or  the  advance  in  the  price  of  silver  has  no 
more  influence  on  the  marketable  value  or  prices  of  things 
than  the  remotest  star  in  heaven  on  the  tides  of  the  ocean. 


SILVER,  WHEAT  AND  COFFEE. 

Brazil  produces  a  large  per  cent,  of  the  coffee  grown. 
The  Argentine  Republic  produces  a  large  amount  of 
wheat. 


36  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

Now  in  Brazil  coffee  has  advanced  in  ten  years  from 
say  0  cents  per  pound  to  say  16  or  17  cents  per  pound  on 
the  Brazilian  seaboard. 

But  note  the  contrary  course  of  wheat  in  the  Argentine 
Republic.  In  1885  the  cost  of  wheat  in  that  country  ex- 
ceeded f  1.50  per  bushel.  It  is  now  about  40  cents.  The 
greater  part  of  the  crop  of  1894  was  sold  by  Argentine 
farmers  at  about  38  cents.* 

In  other  words,  the  wheat  product  of  Argentina,  and  of 
the  world,  gradually  grew  till  it  exceeded  the  demand, 
while,  on  the  contrary,  the  supply  of  coffee  in  Brazil  and 
other  coffee  countries  grew  less  till  the  demand  exceeded 
the  supply. 

Silver  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  rise  or  the 
fall  of  either. 


SILVER  AND  COTTON. 

For  the  five  years,  1890-1894,  inclusive,  the  total  pro- 
duction of  cotton  in  the  United  States  was,  in  round  fig- 
ures, 44,000,000  bales.  For  the  previous  five  years,  it  was 
a  little  above  34,000,000  bales.  That  is  to  say,  in  the 
years  1890  to  1894  we  grew  nearly  10,000,000  bales  more 
cotton  than  in  the  preceding  five-year  period.  The  pro- 
duction also  increased  in  other  countries. 

With  such  tremendous  gain  in  supply,  with  an  actual 
and  substantial  falling  off  in  consumption  during  part  of 
this  period  (the  falling  off  amounting  to  about  500,000 
bales  in  1893),  need  we  look  up  the  market  price  of  silver 
to  account  for  the  price  of  cotton? 

If  the  world  grows  more  cotton  than  it  can  sell  to  the 
spinners  and  other  manufacturers,  what  is  to  be  done 
with  the  surplus?  People  cannot  eat  it,  build  houses 
with  it,  or  otherwise  use  it.  Somebody  must  hold  it;  put 
money  into  it;  pay  interest,  storage  and  insurance;  give  it 
time  and  attention.  The  contingencies  of  future  con- 
sumption and  supply  must  be  taken  account  of.  The  sur- 
plus becomes  purely  speculative,  at  greatly  reduced 
value.  And  it  brings  down  the  price  of  the  entire  supply. 
With  a  large  surplus  on  hand,  and  a  production  of  ten 
million  bales  per  year  in  the  United  States  (an  excess  of 

*P^etimates  made  on  gold  Tallies. 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  37 

two  million  bales  per  annum  above  legitimate  demands 
from  this  country),  with  no  certainty,  or  even  reasonable 
probability,  of  decreased  production,  can  anybody  fail  to 
see  why  cotton  is  lower  than  ever  before?  The  state  of 
Texas  alone  grew  last  year  nearly  half  as  much  cotton  as 
was  grown  in  the  entire  South  ten  years  ago;  and  the  pro- 
duction in  that  state  can  be  largely  increased  at  a  profit, 
even  at  present  prices. 

If  silver  were  30  cents,  75  cents,  $1.00  or  $2  per  ounce, 
would  the  present  large  surplus  of  cotton  and  the  OV«T- 
I  production  in  the  United  States  of  two  million  bales  pei1 
annum  disappear?  It  would  if  the  decline  in  silver  has 
been  the  cause  of  the  decline  in  cotton,  as  the  fertile  au- 
thor of  "Coin,"  and  other  visionaries  have  figured;  but  a 
practical  man  would  say  that  the  crops  must  be  reduced 
two  million  bales,  or  new  uses  must  be  found  to  consume 
two  million  bales  more  than  the  world  now  consumes,  if 
the  old  standard  of  prices  are  again  to  prevail. 


SILVER  IN   FRANCE. 

~Free  coinage  orators  point  to  France  as  a  country  that 
has  done  wonders  with  silver.  But  when  silver  began  io 
decline,  and  its  coinage  ratio  to  go  below  the  gold  value, 
France  closed  her  mints  to  silver. 

A  recent  statement  of  the  Bank  of  France*  showed 
specie  holdings  as  follows: 

(iold .fl:;n.iMM).iMiu 

Silver L'-Jo.OOO.iM.i 

Showing  $205,000,000  more  gold  than  silver. 
The  November  statement  of  the  United  States  Treas- 
ury showed  specie  holdings: 

Silver $508,000,000 

dol.l 126.000,000 

Showing  $382,000,000  more  silver  than  gold. 

So  it  appears  that  the  Bank  of  France  held  nearly  $2 
in  gold  to  every  dollar  in  silver,  while  the  United  States 
Treasury  held  only  $1  in  gold  to  every  $4  in  silver. 

The  Bank  of  France,  on  the  date  referred  to,  held  nearly 
double  as  much  gold  as  the  Bank  of  England;  and  France 
is  as  firmly  a  gold  standard  country  as  England,  and  will 


*See  18U4  Report  of  the  Director  of  the  Mint. 


38  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

always  remain  so.  And  it  was  wise  enough  to  stop  the 
coinage  of  silver  before  it  endangered  its  gold  supply. 
There  is  no  free  coinage  party  in  France,  nor,  indeed,  in 
any  other  great  civilized  country,  excepting  the  United 
States. 

France  has  a  total  of  $825,000,000  of  gold  and  $492,000,- 
000  of  silver,  nearly  double  as  much  gold  as  silver,  wrhile 
the  United  States  has  almost  equal  quantities  of  each. 


FREE  COINAGE  IN  MEXICO. 

Our  next  door  neighbor,  Mexico,  has  produced  more 
silver  than  any  country  in  the  world.  The  mines  of  Chi- 
huahua alone  have  produced  more  than  five  hundred 
million  dollars.  Sonora,  Zacetecas  and  others  have 
yielded  even  more.  Coinage  is  free  in  Mexico.  And  yet 
the  people  are  poor  beyond  the  conception  of  the  common 
American  laborer.  All  labor  1st  poorly  paid.  The  writer 
spent  some  time  in  Mexico  some  years  ago,  and  made  par- 
ticular inquiry  as  to  wages  paid  in  agriculture  and  min- 
ing, the  principal  industries  of  the  country,  and  found 
them  varying  from  10  to  3<>  cents  per  day,  which  is  equiv- 
alent to  5  to  18  cents  in  American  money. 

The  average  for  the  farm  laborer  did  not  exceed  20 
cents  per  day,  or  about  10  cents  in  our  money.  The  peo- 
ple live  in  huts,  subsist  on  the  coarsest  food,  and  |2  in 
American  money  would  buy  the  average  outfit,  from  head 
to  foot,  in  clothing. 

This  is  the  condition  in  a  free  coinage  country  that  has 
produced  more  than  four  thousand  million  dollars  of  sil- 
ver, and  which  is  still  producing  silver  at  a  larger  ratio 
per  capita  than  any  other  country  in  the  world,  its  exports 
of  the  metal  in  1893  being  $51,000,000,  and  in  1892,  $49, 
000,000.  I  have  not  the  statistics  for  1894.  Mexico  has  a 
population  of  12,000,000.  If  the  United  States  produced 
silver  in  the  same  proportion  or  the  same  rate  per  capita, 
counting  Mexico's  exports  only,  our  production  would  be 
$300,000,000  annually,  yet  who  would  say  that  the  people 
of  that  country  are  better  off  than  we? 

Mexico  has  a  money  circulation  of  §4.71  per  capita. 

A  low  rate  per  capita  exists  in  nearly,  if  not  quite  all, 
silver  countries. 


DOLI.AKS.  «>i;   WHAT?  :;<) 

The  people  who  advocate  free  coinage  in  the  United 
States  claim  that  low  prices  and  depressed  trade  condi- 
tions are  due  to  our  gold  standard,  and  insist  that  free 
coinage  would  bring  an  era  of  prosperity.  If  any  of 
them  will  move  across  the  border  into  Mexico  their  opin- 
ions will  undergo  a  decided  change.  A  move  merely  to 
the  border  will  have  a  wholesome  effect. 

On  the  Mexican  side  there  is  small  progress  and  un- 
favorable conditions  generally,  while  within  the  United 
States  line  there  is  activity,  growth  and  fair  prosperity. 
All  the  cities  and  villages  near  the  line  are  built  and  are 
building  on  the  American  side. 

Free  silver  coinage  can  make  no  country  prosperous; 
on  the  contrary,  the  mere  apprehension  of  it  is  quite  suffi- 
cient to  depress  business  and  arrest  enterprise  in  any  en- 
lightened, prosperous  nation. 


TRAIN  LOADS  OF  SILVER. 

"Coin,"  with  a  stick  twenty-two  feet  long,  deftly  meas- 
ures off  a  space  which  he  says  would  hold  all  the  gold  in 
the  world;  which,  it  may  be  said,  is  the  strongest  argu- 
ment he  could  have  made  in  favor  of  gold  as  money. 

He  then  neatly  disposes  of  the  world's  silver  money  by 
saving  that  it  could  all  be  stored  in  a  Chicago  banking 
room  and  basement 

1 1  is  idea  is  original,  but  he  does  not  put  it  in  a  way  that 
his  pupils  quite  grasp  the  enormity  of  the  pile.  It  would 
be  a  little  more  understandable  if  he  had  said  that  there 
is  enough  coined  silver  to  load  fairly  well  three  hundred 
trains  of  twenty  cars  each,  or  a  total  of  six  thousand  cat- 
loads.  He  might  have  explained  further  that  there  are 
eight  hundred  and  forty-four  car  loads  of  silver  held  for 
monetary  purposes  in  the  United  States;  and  also  ex- 
plained that  it  is  impossible  to  keep  more  than  seventy- 
six  car  loads  of  that  outside  of  the  Treasury,  of  which 
probably  forty  or  forty-five  car  loads  are  stored  in  bank 
vaults;  showing  that  thirty  or  forty  carloads  are  as  much 
as  the  people  are  willing  to  carry  about  in  their  pockets 
and  secrete  in  their  homes. 

The  United  States  produced  in  the  single  year  1893, 
one  hundr-'d  and  four  car  loads  of  silver,  almost  three 


40  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

times  as  much  as  the  people  will  carry  about  with  them, 
and  more  than  twice  as  much,  excepting  silver  change, 
as  can  be  kept  in  circulation  outside  the  Treasury. 

In  1893  the  world  produced  two  hundred  and  eighty-two 
cur  loads  of  silver.  The  production  had  since  1874  in- 
creased in  every  year,  excepting  one;  and  would  have  con- 
tinued to  increase  more  rapidly  but  for  the  fact  that  it  be- 
gan to  decline  in  price  because  it  became  so  abundant  it 
could  not  be  utilized  either  as  money,  or  in  the  arts. 

Owing  to  the  improved  methods  of  mining  within  very 
recent  years,  and  discoveries  of  new  mines  and  mining 
regions  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  it  is  perfectly  safe 
to  say  that  if  silver  had  remained  at  even  the  greatly  de- 
preciated price  of  $1.00  per  ounce,  not  less  than  f  300,000,- 
000  or  say  four  hundred  and  five  car  loads,  would  have 
been  mined  in  the  year  1895 — about  ten  times  as  much 
as  the  people  of  the  United  States  keep  in  active  use. 

At  this  rate  of  production  22,500  car  loads  would  be 
turned  out  in  an  ordinary  lifetime.  All  the  locomotives 
on  the  largest  system  of  railroads  in  the  world  could  hard- 
ly haul  it. 

And  the  capacity  of  production  is  unlimited.  If  its 
value  could  be  raised  even  to  84  cents  an  ounce,  its  price 
in  1893,  its  output  would  now  far  exceed  the  two  hundred 
and  eighty-two  car  loads  mined  in  that  year.  But  in  the 
face  of  unlimited  quantities  in  sight,  and  unlimited  re- 
sources for  getting  it  out  of  the  mines,  no  great  or  perma- 
nent rise  in  its  price  is  possible.  And  under  such  condi- 
tions its  constant  fluctuation  in  value  is  inevitable.  If 
the  price  is  so  low  that  little  is  mined,  it  \vill  go  up;  if  it 
advances  enough  to  show  a  profit  enterprise  and  capital 
will  at  once  increase  the  output,  and  it  will  go  down.  The 
output  is  limited  by  the  price  only. 

The  principle  is  the  same  as  in  pork  production.  If 
hogs  are  high,  farmers  everywhere  go  to  raising  them; 
and  soon  glut  the  market.  Then  the  price  of  pork  de- 
clines till  hog  raising  becomes  unprofitable;  and  the 
farmer  tries  his  hand  at  something  else. 

Does  anybody  want  a  currency  based  on  such  a  metal, 
a  currency  that  a  lot  of  miners  put  up  or  down  as  their 
interests  prompt?  Today  you  have  Dollars,  tomorrow 
you  have — What? 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT.'  41 


GOLD  AND  SILVER  PRODUCTION. 

The  world's  total  stock  of  metallic  money  is  approxi- 
mately $8,600,000,000,  the  proportion  of  gold  and  silver 
being  not  far  from  equal,  there  being  about  one-tenth 
more  of  the  latter;  say  §4,100,000,000  gold  and  $4,500,000,- 
000  silver. 

This  is  the  total  money  accumulation  of  these  metals 
from  the  date  of  their  use  to  the  present  time. 

And  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  world's  production 
of  the  money  metals  within  the  last  thirty-five  years  has 
been  approximately  $7,300,000,000,  of  which  about  $3,950,- 
000,000  was  gold  and  $3,350,000,000  silver. 

Much  more  gold  than  silver  was  consumed  in  the  arts; 
and  several  hundred  millions  more  silver  than  gold  was, 
in  that  period,  available  for  coinage  into  money. 

This  immense  increased  supply  of  the  precious  metals 
became  the  property  of  a  few  countries,  since  it  was 
through  the  agencies  of  the  progressive,  civilized  nations 
only  that  it  was  produced. 

-The  gold  was  readily  absorbed,  owing  to  its  great 
value  in  small  compass;  but  these  enterprising  countries 
suddenly  accumulated  more  silver  than  they  could  use  as 
money.  For  instance,  the  silver  of  Mexico  is  mined  large- 
ly by  Americans  and  Englishmen,  and  its  large  output 
goes  mainly  to  England  and  the  United  States.  This  is 
the  simple  reason  why  certain  countries  limited  the  coin- 
age of  silver.  It  is  the  reason  why  there  can  not  be  free 
coinage  without  involving  these  countries  in  hopeless 
bankruptcy. 

In  former  periods  the  supply  of  the  metal  was  limited, 
and  the  people  had  no  more  than  they  could  handle  and 
carry  about,  but  the  largely  increased  stock  could  not  be 
circulated. 

It  is  shown  elsewhere  that  only  about  80  cents  of  silver 
per  capita  can  be  actually  circulated  in  the  United  States, 
and  the  same  condition  exists  in  all  other  countries  where 
a  lighter  and  more  convenient  currency  is  available. 

Its  "demonetization"  by  any  eonntry  was  not  from 
choice,  but  from  necessity.  It  was  not  done  because  any 
particular  class  of  men  or  le^islat  ive  bodv  wanted  it  done, 
but  because  the  people,  in  effect,  said  to  the  lawmakers: 


42  DOLLAKS,  OR  WHAT? 

"You  are  giving  us  too  much  of  this  kind  of  money;  it 
is  too  bulky  and  heavy;  ten  or  twenty  dollars  weights  the 
pocket;  we  cannot  hide  it ;  when  we  have  money  we  do  not 
want  everybody  to  know  it;  you  can  coin  it  if  you  want  to, 
but  if  you  do  so  you  must  keep  it;  if  you  give  it  to  us  we 
will  give  it  back  to  you  in  exchange  for  more  convenient 
money." 

Any  great  change  in  the  laws  of  any  country  has  its 
source  in  the  people.  The  people  of  certain  nations  of 
Europe  decreed  by  their  acts  that  the  coinage  of  silver 
must  stop. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  have  passed  a  similar 
decree.  And  in  this  decision,  all  the  silver  bugs  as  well 
as  the  gold  bugs,  have  joined;  the  free  silver  advocate  is 
no  more  willing  than  the  sound  money  man  to  accept 
pocketfuls  of  silver  in  payment  of  accounts.  If  he  gets 
•S~>0  of  the  metal  he  strikes  a  bee  line  for  a  bank  and  con- 
verts it  into  paper  or  gold,  or  places  it  to  his  credit,  and 
draw's  out  paper  or  gold  as  he  wants  it  He  has  directly 
aided  in  its  "demonetization,"  and  in  depressing  its  com- 
mercial value.  Although  he  cries  "free  silver,"  he  carries 
bills  or  gold  in  his  pockets,  and  leaves  the  silver  for  the 
government  to  hoard  in  idleness. 

And  the  United  States  Treasury's  hoard  of  silver  is  ab 
solutely  idle  and  useless.  The  1894  report  of  the  Bureau 
of  the  Mint  places  the  sum  at  $514,000,000.  It  is  almost 
worthless  as  an  asset,  because  there  is  no  possible  way  to 
use  it.  Pensioners,  contractors,  and  employes  of  the  gov- 
ernment, whether  free  silver  advocates  or  otherwise,  re- 
fuse to  accept  it  in  payment  for  services  and  bills. 

For  the  same  reason  it  is  worth  nothing  as  a  support 
to  the  credit  of  the  government.  On  the  contrary,  it  is, 
for  good  reasons,  a  peril  and  a  menace. 

Any  other  government  w^ould  melt  much  of  it  down  and 
sell  it;  but  the  Western  mine  owners  hold  the  balance  of 
power  at  Washington,  and  they  do  not  want  it  put  on  the 
market  in  competition  w^ith  their  product. 

If  gold  could  be  obtained  for  a  good  part  of  it,  the  whole 
country  would  soon  have  great  cause  to  rejoice.  Such  a 
deal  would  be  a  great  bargain  and  a  great  blessing.  Our 
fiat  money  would  have  substantial  support,  and  our  na- 
tional finances  could  be  handled  with  ease  and  confidence. 

Furthermore,  the  stability  it  would  give  would  soon 


InU.I.AKS,  <>R  WHAT?  4:', 

largely  increase  our  supply  of  good  money,  and  our  rate 
per  capita. 

The  facts  here  stated  and  the  statistics  given  make 
plain  the  causes  of  the  decline  in  the  prices  of  silver,  and 
of  the  largely  increased  ratio  of  value  between  gold  and 
silver. 


FLUCTUATIONS  IN  THE  SILVER  DOLLAR. 

The  following  table  shows,  in  the  years  named,  the 
fluctuation  in  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  silver  dollar: 

VICAR.-.  HHiHKST.  J,0\VF.ST. 

187(5 <)!»  cents 71)  cents 

1878 9:5  cents s:;  <-ent> 

1S7!' <il  cents S-J  mils 

79  cents 71  cents 

1 92  cents 74  rent- 

1892 74  cents 04  cents 

189o 65  cents 50  cents 

Only  years  are  given  in  which  the  change  was  most 
striking.  Fluctuations,  however,  have  been  marked  each 
year  since  the  large  overproduction  of  silver  began  to  glut 
the  market. 

If  the  country  had  been  on  a  silver  basis  in  the  year 
18TG,  for  instance,  a  dollar  of  any  kind  of  money  would 
have  been  worth  in  July,  1876,  79  cents,  and  in  December, 
'.Mi  cents.  In  the  following  year  it  would  have  been  worth 
about  90  cents,  and  down  again  in  1878  to  83  cents;  up 
again  in  1879  to  91  cents,  and  so  on  through  each  year 
do\vn  to  the  present  time.  In  1893  it  dropped  from  iT, 
cents  to  about  50  cents,  a  change  in  value  of  23  per  cent. 
in  a  single  year. 

The  capacity  of  production  being  now  practically  unlim- 
ited, its  fluctuation  will  inevitably  continue. 

Ureat  hardship  and  uncertainty  would-result  if  wages, 
salaries,  the  products  of  labor,  contracts  and  credits  were 
based  on  such  money. 

And  the  poor  man,  who  earns  his  living  by  the  sweat  of 
his  lirow,  would  suffer  most.  While  at  limes  the  dollar 
of  !/.~>  or  1)9  cents  might  keep  him  in  comfort,  his  wife  and 
little  ones  would  be  sorely  pinched  when  the  dollar 
dropped  to  65  or  to  50  cent?.  His  wages  would  not  go  up 
and  down  with  the  dollar,  but  his  food  and  clothing  would 
do  so. 


44  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

And  furthermore,  the  uncertainty  of  values  would  so 
disturb  the  business  of  his  employer  that  work  would  be 
precarious.  His  employment  and  subsistence  would  fluc- 
tuate with  the  output  of  the  silver  mine.  He  would  be 
constantly  on  the  ragged  edge,  and  at  the  mercy  of  ad- 
venturous mine  operators  and  speculators. 

The  wage  earner,  above  all  other  men,  is  vitally  con- 
cerned in  a  fixed,  unchanging  standard  of  money.  His 
living  is  too  slender  to  admit  of  the  risk  of  change  and 
speculation.  He  can  not  afford  to  base  it  on  the  chance 
of  any  industry,  especially  not  that  of  silver  mining. 

The  silver  dollar  appears  to  be  a  mighty  good  dollar 
now,  since  it  buys  anything  that  can  be  bought  with  any 
other  kind  of  a  dollar;  but  this  is  simply  because  it  is 
braced  up  by,  and  made  interchangeable  with,  the  gold 
dollar. 

But  if  it  stood  alone,  without  a  law  or  a  policy  that 
makes  it  exchangeable  for  100  eents  in  gold,  its  purchas- 
ing value  would  be  as  uncertain  as  the  wind  and  weather. 

It  cannot  be  that  any  man  who  understands  this  matter 
favors  free  coinage  of  silver,  which  means  a  silver  basis 
and  unsteady  money. 


On  a  silver  money  basis  all  market  values  in  tJie  United  States 
would  change  with  the  tising  and  setting  of  t/te  sun. 


STANDARD  OF  GRAIN  MEASURE. 

A  bushel  is  the  standard  measure  of  grain.  Contracts 
of  sale  and  purchase  are  made  on  this  basis.  And  it  is 
a  stable  measure,  because  it  does  not  change. 

But  suppose  it  were  a  fluctuating  measure,  a  little  more 
today,  a  little  less  tomorrow — what  confusion  would  re- 
sult! When  the  farmer  sold  his  wheat  he  would  be 
obliged  to  do  a  complicated  sum  in  mathematics  to  find 
out  how  much  he  got  for  it 

Yet  there  would  be  less  confusion  in  a  changing  grain 
measure  than  in  a  changing  money  measure,  because  the 
effect  of  the  latter  would  be  more  general. 

And  a  silver  standard  would  be  such  a  money  measure 
because  silver  is  a  commodity  of  uncertain  market  value. 


. I  IBS,  "R  WHAT?  45 

\Vitli  a  silver  basis,  or  measure  of  money,  the  farmer 
would  be  at  as  great  loss  to  know  what  he  got  for  his 
wheat,  barley,  corn,  oats  and  rye  as  if  the  bushel  basis  or 
measure  of  grain  changed  every  day. 

Gold  is  now  the  unchanging  measure  of  money  just  as 
(he  bushel  is  the  unchanging  measure  of  corn. 

Can  any  practical  man  desire  to  change  either? 


RATIO  BETWEEN  GOLD  AND  SILVER. 

"Coin"  has  a  good  deal  to  say  about  the  commercial 
latio  of  silver  to  gold.  He  goes  back  a  century  or  two 
and  shows  that  this  ratio  was  fairly  steadys  through  the 
period  he  goes  over.  This  is  true,  and  there  were  a  num- 
ber of  good  reasons  for  it,  the  chief  being  that  the  produc- 
tion of  gold  and  silver  were  happily  in  about  the  propor- 
tions needed. 

But  it  suits  his  purpose  not  to  go  further  back  than 
HIST.  Prior  to  1680,  covering  the  period  from  1493,  there 
had  been  a  change  of  50  per  cent,  in  the  ratio. 
~  The  "appreciation"  of  gold  and  the  depreciation  of  sil- 
ver through  this  period  is  a  very  interesting  circumstance 
in  connection  with  the  silver  doctrine. 

And  the  cause  of  the  decline  in  silver  was  the  same 
as  now,  namely,  a  largely  increased  production,  though 
it  worked  more  slowly  for  two  reasons.  First,  owing  to 
the  fact  that  in  former  times  there  was  a  scarcity  of  both 
gold  and  silver,  and  it  was  not  difficult  to  absorb  as  money 
all  that  could  be  had  of  either;  secondly,  all  movements 
were  slow  a  few  hundred  years  ago;  what  is  now  accom- 
plished within  two  or  three  years  then  required  a  cen- 
uiry.  The  increased  production  of  silver  was  slow,  and 
though  the  quantity  was  comparatively  small,  the  per 
cent,  compared  writh  production  in  former  periods  was 
great. 

The  commercial  ratio  of  silver  to  gold  in  the  15th  cen- 
tury was  a  fraction  over  10  to  1.  In  the  17th  century  it 
was  a  fraction  over  15  to  1.  This  was  in  1680. 

"( 'oin,"  convenient  ly,  begins  his  table  in  KJST,  and  com- 
pletely ignores  the  most  remarkable  rhsingr  that  ever  oc- 
curred between  the  metals,  the  most  remarkable  owing  to 
the  general  scarcity  of  money  of  all  kinds,  and  particular- 


46  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

ly  of  the  precious  metals.  And  the  change  is  clearly  di- 
rectly traceable  to  the  ratio  of  production  between  the 
metals. 

On  pages  174  and  175  of  the  report  of  the  Bureau  of  the 
Mint,  1894,  may  be  found  a  table  showing  the  production 
of  both  in  the  15th,  16th  and  17th  centuries.  In  the  early 
part  of  the  loth  century  the  per  centage  of  silver  pro- 
duced was  very  small,  being  from  1493  to  1520  only  $5-1,- 
703,000,  while  the  production  of  gold  in  the  same  period 
was  1107,931,000.  The  ratio  at  that  time  was  not  far  from 
10  to  1.  But  the  output  of  silver  soon  began  to  largely 
increase,  and  after  1544  the  production  of  gold  began  to 
fall  off.  The  following  table  from  page  175  of  the  report 
shows  the  relative  production  in  value  of  the  metals  dur- 
ing the  period  referred  to: 

Per  Cent,  of  Production. 
Year,  A.  D.  Gold.  Silver. 

1493-1520 66 33 

1521-1544 55 44 

1^45-1560 30 69 

15G1-1580 26 73 

1591-1600  22 78 

1601-1620 24 75 

1621-1640  25 74   - 

1641-1660  27 72 

1661-1680 30 69 

In  1680  the  ratio  of  values  stood  at  something  over 
15  to  1. 

The  above  table  explains  the  cause  of  the  decline  in  sil- 
ver in  that  period,  and  no  argument  is  needed. 

Its  production  largely  increased,  and  that  of  gold  large- 
ly declined.  There  was  no  "demonetization,"  or  "un- 
friendly" silver  legislation  in  that  day.  It  could  have 
been  affected  only  by  the  natural  laws  of  supply  and  de- 
mand. Considering  the  conditions  then  prevailing  the 
decline  was  even  more  remarkable  than  the  decline  of  50 
per  cent,  in  the  value  of  silver  since  1873.  In  the  latter 
period  its  output  became  so  great  that,  owing  to  its  bulk 
and  weight  the  currency  systems  of  the  world  could  not 
absorb  it. 

The  table  referred  to  extends  down  to  the  present  time, 
and,  if  considered  with  reference  to  general  conditions 
and  influences  at  different  periods,  is  an  interesting  study. 
It  gives  convincing  proof  that  a  double  standard  of  money 
value  has  at  all  times  been  uncertain.  No  proof  ought  to 
be  needed  that  such  a  standard,  on  any  basis,  is  now  im- 
possible, owing  to  the  fact  that  there  is  now  a  real  sur- 


IK.LLAKS.  UK  WHAT?  47 

plus  of  silver;  and  anything  of  which  there  is  a  surplus  is 
of  unstable  value  and  purely  speculative,  subject  to  sud- 
den and  violent  fluctuations.  No  such  thing  can  furnish 
a  safe  financial  corner  stone. 

Xo  country  can  prosper  on  a  money  basis  bobbing  up 
and  down.     There  could  be  no  certain  profit  in  busi;, 
nor  any  steady  or  satisfactory  remuneration  for  labor, 
with  dollars  worth  60  cents  today,  and  55  or  65  cents  to- 
morrow. 

A  silver  standard  in  America  would  make  it  necessary 
for  a  man  each  day  to  wait  the  silver  quotations  from  the 
London  market  to  ascertain  how  much  money  he  had,  how 
much  his  neighbor  owed  him,  or  how  much  he  owed  his 
neighbor.  As  to  wages,  or  the  cost  of  living  a  month  or 
year  in  the  future,  he  could  form  small  estimate.  Xo 
equitable  scale  of  wages  could  be  agreed  on  between  em- 
ployer and  employe.  The  money  would  be  liable  to  go 
down  in  purchasing  value  till  the  workman  could  not  live 
on  his  pay;  or  it  might  go  up  till  it  would  bankrupt  the 
•  •in  j (lover.  There  could  be  no  confidence  between  the  men 
who  give  work  and  those  who  work.  Frequent  adjust- 
ments would  be  a  necessity.  Strikes  and  grievances 
would  multiply;  uncertainty  in  pay  and  profit,  and  dissat- 
isfaction would  become  general. 

If  a  man  insured  his  life  for  the  benefit  of  his  family,  he 
could  make  no  estimate  on  what  they  would  really  get  at 
his  death.  The  sum  might  be  more  than  he  counted,  or 
it  might  be  a  great  deal  less. 

If  he  sold  his  house,  or  his  farm,  for  a  given  sum,  the 
note  he  took  in  payment  would  be  in  the  nature  of  a  lot- 
tery ticket;  the  money  might  go  up,  and  the  final  payment 
be  more  than  he  expected,  or  it  might  go  down  and  be  less 
than  he  expected.  If  he  were  in  delu  the  rise  mi  gin  en- 
able him  to  square  accounts  with  ease;  or  the  decline 
might  embarrass  or  cripple  him.  He  might  draw  a  ;n  i/e 
or  a  blank. 

it  is  doubtless  unfortunate  for  mankind  that  silver  has 
become  so  abundant  that  it  is  unsteady  in  value.  ;md  con 
sequently  uncertain  and  unsafe  as  a  basis  of  money.      It 
is  also  unfortunate  for  the  farmer  that  overproduction  and 
competition  have  so  greatly  reduced  the  price  of  wheat; 
but  these  facts  exist,  and  it  is  more  sensible  to  look  them 
<jqnarely  in  the  face,  than  to  theorize,  worry,  and   n: 
things  generally,  in  a  vain  effort  to  change  them. 


48       .  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

It  may  be  unfortunate  that  gold  is  now  the  only  money 
metal  that  has  a  safely  steady  value  on  which  present  or 
future  obligations  can  with  equal  safety  be  based,  but 
such  is  the  case;  and  it  does  no  good  to  fret  and  rail  about 
it  Natural  and  irresistible  agencies,  controlled  by  no 
class  of  men,  brought  about  this  condition;  and,  if  the 
condition  ever  changes,  natural,  and  not  unnatural  agen- 
cies must  bring  the  change.  It  can  not  be  done  by  legis- 
lative edicts  at  Washington. 


EXPORTS  OF  SILVER. 

The  production  of  silver  in  this  country  continues  to 
add  to  our  money  circulation  an  amount  equal  to  the  mar- 
ketable value  of  all  the  metal  mined,  less  the  amount 
used  in  domestic  arts.  The  surplus  is  exported,  and 
either  brings  an  equal  amount  of  gold  into  the  country 
or  keeps  an  equal  amount  of  gold  from  going  out.  In 
1894  we  exported  and  sold  abroad  $39,555,879  of  domestic 
silver.  This  silver  either  added  or  saved  to  our  currency 
an  equal  amount  of  money.  If  it  had  been  coined  into 
money  and  kept  at  home,  we  should  have  been  obliged  to 
send  abroad  an  equal  amount  of  gold,  unless  we  had  in- 
creased our  indebtedness  to  foreign  lenders.  The  United 
States  does  not  destroy  silver  when  it  quits  coining  the 
metal.  It  is  sold,  and  our  circulation  increased  that 
much.  The  increase  creates  no  apprehension  and  is  sub- 
stantial. It  is  gold,  and  each  dollar  has  an  intrinsic  value 
of  100  cents.  If  the  silver  were  coined  into  dollars  they 
would  add  more  to  the  volume  of  circulation,  but  would 
possess  an  intrinsic  value  no  greater  than  the  export  valuo 
of  the  metal;  and  its  coinage  would  drive  out  more  gold 
than  the  gain  in  silver  circulation. 


OBSTACLES  IN  THE  WAY  OF  FREE  SILVER. 

If  the  currency  of  the  United  States  were  not  on  a  gold 
basis,  and  there  were  no  gold  in  circulation,  the  free  coin- 
age of  silver  could  be  accomplished  without  sudden  shock 
and  disaster,  because  no  large  part  of  the  money  would  be 
withdrawn  from  circulation,  suddenly  contracting  the 
currency;  and  also  because  there  would  be  no  sudden  and 


.  OK  WHAT?  4!) 

violent  unsettling  of  credits  and  values,  and  sudden  with- 
drawals of  foreign  capital.  Under  a  well  arranged  note 
system,  based  on  silver,  there  would  be  a  gradual  increase 
in  the  volume  of  money,  and  possibly  a  general  rise  in 
values;  though  so  long  as  the  paper  were  within  safe 
limits  higher  prices  would  result  rather  than  from  the 
cheapening  of  silver,  the  basis  of  the  money,  from  in- 
creased over  supply,  than  from  the  actual  volume  of  cur- 
rency put  out  Under  such  circumstances  the  free  silver 
advocates  could  obtain  their  desire — an  immediate  in- 
crease in  the  money  supply. 

There  are  good  grounds,  however,  for  the  belief  that  th<> 
United  States  would,  under  any  system  OB  a  silver  basis, 
be  under  serious  disadvantages  as  a  progressive  nation. 
and  that  owing  to  these  disadvantages  its  enterprises 
would  languish;  but  if  we  were  not  on  a  gold  basis,  it 
could  by  free  coinage  doubtless  make  money,  such  as  it 
would  be,  abundant,  without  the  danger  of  serious  dis- 
turbance for  the  time  being,  its  fluctuation  in  value  not 
considered.  (This  assumption,  however,  it  may  be  said 
is  theoretical.) 

This  is  what  the  free  silver  people  desire  to  accomplish. 
But  they  overlook  the  fact  that  $626,000,000  of  our  money 
is*  gold,  and  that  this  part  of  it  would  immediately  dis- 
appear, and  by  sudden  contraction,  disastrously  defeat 
their  purpose.  They  ignore  our  foreign  indebtedness  of 
probably  about  $2,000,000,000,  a  large  part  of  which 
would  have  to  be  settled,  and  soon  take  all  the  available 
gold,  and  much  silver  besides. 

These  are  some  of  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  free  coin- 
age. It  would  seem  that  they  are  simple  and  clear 
enough  for  reasoning  men  to  see  them.  They  are  so  ap- 
palling that  if  we  should  ignore  them  we  should  become  a 
nation  of  bankrupts  and  the  wonder  of  the  world. 


Free  coinage  of  silver  means  a  silver  basis,  li'ith  silvct  as  the 
only  metallic  money,  and  a  loss  to  the  currency  0/  £626,000,000 
gold. 


50  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 


DO  WE  WANT  BIMETALLISM  ? 

There  was  in  the  United  States  on  November  1st,  as 
elsewhere  stated,  approximately  $625,000,000  silver  and 
1626,000,000  gold. 

Shall  we  use  both  the  silver  and  the  gold,  or  shall  we 
use  only  one,  and  get  rid  of  $626,000,000  of  the  other 
money? 

To  use  both  is  bimetallism;  to  use  one  is  monomet- 
allism. Are  we  bimetallists,  or  are  we  monometallists? 

England  is  practically  a  monometallic  country,  since  it 
uses  but  $112,000,000  of  silver,  all  told,  and  that  as  a  lim- 
ited legal  tender.  China,  Japan,  Mexico  and  most  South 
American  countries  are  also  monometallic  countries, 
since  they  use  only  silver.  France  and  Germany  are  bi- 
metallic countries,  both  using  gold  and  silver;  the  latter 
in  larger  quantities  than  England,  and  a  large  per  cent, 
of  it  as  full  legal  tender. 

France,  next  to  the  United  States,  uses  more  legal  ten- 
der silver  than  any  other  bimetallic  countrv,  the  amount 
being  $434,000,000. 

Germany  uses  $215,000,000,  all  told,  only  $105,000,000 
being  legal  tender. 

The  United  States  has  $549,000,000  full  legal  tender  sil- 
ver, $626,000,000  legal  tender  gold,  and  $76,000,000  silver 
half  dollars,  quarters  and  dimes,  which  are  limited  legal 
tender.  Both  kinds  of  money,  under  our  present  laws 
and  policy,  are  good,  and  both  (excepting  the  fractional 
coin)  a  full  legal  tender  for  the  payment  of  debts  to  indi- 
viduals and  of  dues  to  the  government. 

Are  we  satisfied  to  keep  and  use  them  both  in  safe 
quantities  or  are  we  partial  and  obstinate,  and  shall  we 
determine  to  use  but  one  and  drive  the  other  out  of  circu- 
lation and  out  of  the  county? 

I  believe  these  are  needless  questions. 

It  would  be  hard  to  see  what  the  country  could  gain  and 
easy  to  see  what  it  would  lose  by  such  a  course.  The 
masses  of  the  people  of  the  South  and  North — ninety-nine 
in  every  hundred — are  straight  out  bimetallists.  The 
writer  is  a  bimetallist.  He  believes  with  the  ninety-nine 
in  every  hundred  Southern  and  Northern  men,  in  the  use 
of  both  gold  and  silver,  and  all  other  good  money  we  can 


DOLLABS,  OK  WHAT?  r,i 

get;  but  lie  does  not  believe  in  using  more  silver  than  can 
be  handled  with  convenience  to  the  people,  and  safety  to 
the  Government  He  believes  also  that  the  coinage  of 
silver  should  be  regulated  by  its  absorption  as  a  circulat- 
ing medium — by  the  amount  the  people  are  willing  to 
take  and  use,  and  keep  in  circulation — its  idle  accumula- 
tion in  large  sums  in  the  treasury  vaults  being  useless 
aud  dangerous  at  the  present  ratio.  He  does  not  how- 
ever believe  in  schemes  to  force  the  increased  and  in- 
convenient use  of  silver  by  the  withdrawal  from  circula- 
tion of  small  denominations  of  paper  money. 

Xow,  how  are  we  to  continue  bimetallism?  The  silver 
dollar  circulates  in  the  same  channels  as  the  gold  dollar, 
of  equal  purchasing  and  debt-paying  value. 

But  the  gold  dollar  has  an  intrinsic  and  marketable 
\  alue  nearly  double  the  silver  dollar.  It  can  be  melted  • 
down  and  sold  at  the  rate  of  about  $20  per  ounce,  or  foir 
one  hundred  cents,  in  any  country  in  the  world,  but  if  the 
silver  dollar  be  melted  down  it  can  be  sold  for  only  about 
sixty-two  cents  an  ounce  (the  present  market  price),  or 
something  over  fifty  cents.  Then  why  does  the  gold  dol- 
lar circulate  with  the  silver  dollar?  Why  do  not  the  peo- 
ple melt  down  their  gold  dollars  and  sell  them,  and  keep 
the  dollars  with  less  marketable  value  for  use  in  paying 
obligations  and  making  purchases? 

Is  it  because  the  United  States  has  put  its  dollar  stamp 
on  the  silver  piece? 

Xo.  That  stamp,  of  itself,  does  not  add  the  fraction  of 
a  cent  to  the  value  of  the  silver  piece. 

It  is  because  the  affirmed  policy  of  the  United  States 
makes  its  silver  dollar  interchangeable  with  its  gold  dol- 
lar; and  because  it  undertakes  to  keep  not  less  than 
$100,000,000  in  gold  on  hand,  so  that  it  may  have  an  abun- 
dance of  the  dollars  of  one  hundred  cents  marketable 
value  to  maintain  the  Interchangeable  quality  of  its 
cheaper,  fluctuating  silver  money,  and  its  otherwise 
worthless  paper  money.  Thus  we  have  bimetallism  as 
the  word  is  generally  understood. 

But  it  ought  not  to  be  hard  to  see  that  this  $100,000,000 
"old  reserve  is  already  subject  to  considerable  strain. 
It  supports  all  the  silver,  either  in  the  form  of  coined  sil- 
ver or  paper  silver  certificates,  and  all  other  forms  of 
paper,  making  a  total  of  about  eleven  hundred  million 


52  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

dollars  directly  dependent  on  that  reserve  for  its  full 
face  value. 

Now,  if  under  our  present  financial  system  we  coin  any 
more  silver  we  increase  the  strain  on  the  gold  reserve, 
which  alone  makes  all  our  money  good.  It  is  compara- 
tively a  small  sum,  say  one-eleventh  of  the  money  it  sup- 
ports and  gives  value  to.  It  could  not  have  been  kept 
on  hand  a  week  at  any  time  since  it  was  established  but 
for  the  confidence  the  world  has  in  the  promises  and  in- 
tegrity of  the  Government.  One-eleventh  of  the  fiat 
money  taken  to  the  Treasury  window  would  have  taken 
it  all  out.  But  trusting  the  Government's  integrity  of 
purpose,  and  its  ability  to  maintain  that  gold  reserve, 
none  of  it  was  ever  drawn  upon,  except  for  purely  com- 
mercial purposes,  till  the  Sherman  law  was  passed  in 
1890  providing  for  increased  coinage  of  silver  at  the  rate 
of  $54,000,000  per  annum,  thus  increasing  by  that  amount 
annually  the  strain  on  that  gold  reserre.  Serious  finan- 
cial disturbances  followed.  The  gold  reserve  declined 
rapidly.  The  danger  became  so  great  and  so  imminent 
that  the  Sherman  law  was  repealed  in  1893,  though  with 
great  difficulty,  owing  chiefly  to  obstructive  measures  of 
Senators  from  the  mining  districts  of  the  West,  who 
wanted  to  put  the  country  on  a  silver  basis.  Full  confi- 
dence has  not  yet  returned.  It  was  retarded  by  the 
appearance  of  a  strong  and  determined  free  coinage  ele- 
ment in  the  Fifty-third  Congress. 

Now,  with  these  simple  facts  before  Mm,  stated  in  a 
straightforward  way,  the  writer  is  sure  that  any  candid 
man  (though  he  may  have  advocated  free  coinage)  must 
admit  that  the  United  States  cannot  coin  any  consider- 
able quantity  more  silver  without  wiping  out  that  gold 
reserve. 

Admitting  this,  we  get  back  to  the  question:  Do  we 
want  bimetallism?  Do  we  want  to  use  both  gold  and 
silver  as  now,  and  have  about  $24*  per  capita  good,  full 
value  money,  or  are  we  willing  to  drive  out  the  gold  for 
the  sake  of  coining  the  product  of  the  Western  mines, 
and  have,  for  a  time  at  least,  only  about  $16  poor  money 
per  capita,  worth  really  only  about  $8  full  value  per 
capita?  We  would  increase  the  $8  per  capita  as  the 
Western  mines  turned  out  silver  and  as  other  countries 


1894  government  reports  estimate  about  S'25  per  capita. 


1HU.I.AKS,  ni:  WHAT? 

might  sell  us  their  accumulation  of  the  unwieldy  metal. 
But  we  should  be  so  hopelessly  bankrupted  that  those 
of  us  now  living  would  not  feel  much  concern  as  to  the 
future  supply  of  the  uncertain  and  cumbersome  money. 

That  supply  would  probably  eventually  be  abundant, 
though  depreciating  and  fluctuating,  and  therefore  con- 
st antlj  unsettling  values  and  trade.  But  in  the  mean- 
time, with  money  on  the  basis  of  $8,  present  purchase 
value,  per  capita,  what  would  become  of  the  people  and 
industries  of  the  United  States — a  people  accustomed 
to  s24  per  capita,  and  enjoying  credits  to  the  extent  of 
probably  $15,000,000,000  or  $20,000,000,000*  based  di- 
rectly on  that  $24  per  capita  and  on  that  $100,000,000 
gold  reserve? 

Is  there  a  man  In  America  whose  imagination  would 
not  stagger  under  an  attempt  to  conceive  the  conse- 
quences of  such  a  calamity? 

While  Mexico  and  the  Western  silver  mines  rehabili- 
tated our  currency  with  a  metal  which  the  people  now 
absolutely  refuse  to  accept  in  any  quantity,  and  of  which 
only  about  fifty-six  million  full  legal  tender  dollars  can 
possibly  be  circulated  (a  great  part  of  that  lying  idly  in 
the  bank  vaults),  what  would  become  of  the  idle,  penni- 
less men,  women  and  children  of  the  United  States,  with 
creditors  like  wolves  swarming  about  them? 

Is  there  any  man  who  can  read  the  plain,  truthful 
statements  here  made  and  not  understand  them?  And 
if  he  understands  them,  is  he  a  bimetallist,  or  is  he  for 
free  coinage  and  silver  monometallism? 

Of  what  avail  are  such  sophistries,  catching  cartoons, 
ingenious  illustrations,  questionings  and  deceptive  rea- 
sonings as  are  contained  in  "Coin's  Financial  School" 
when  set  against  the  serious  facts  and  simple,  naked 
truths  of  the  real  situation?  It  is  little  less  than  criminal 
to  deal  in  sophistries  and  artful  deceptions  when  such 
momentous  interests  are  at  stake. 

We  want  bimetallism,  and  not  silver  monometallism. 


'Including  individual  indebtedness  credits  arc  estimated 


54  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT  ? 


FREE  COINAGE  NOT  FREE  DISTRIBUTION. 

Suppose  it  be  admitted  that  the  free  coinage  of  silver 
would  be  a  blessing,  and  would  at  once  increase  the  vol- 
ume of  money  in  the  country  as  a  whole — in  what  way 
would  it  increase  the  supply  in  individual  pockets? 

How  would  it  even  increase  the  supply  in  non-silver 
producing  sections? 

Free  silver  does  not  mean  that  the  government  would 
coin  and  send  it  about  the  country  on  pack  horses  and  in 
wagons  inviting  every  man  to  help  himself.  There  will 
be  no  "forty  acres  and  a  mule"  distribution,  unless  it  be 
to  the  Western  miners,  at  the  end  of  this  free  silver  fight, 
no  matter  how  it  may  terminate. 

The  metal  is  produced  in  the  mining  sections  of  the 
West.  The  people  who  mine  it  would  have  the  privilege 
of  sending  it  to  the  government  mints  and  getting  it 
coined  into  money.  When  coined  it  wrould  belong  to 
them. 

They  would  not  scatter  it  around  among  their  friends 
in  Georgia,  South  Carolina  and  Illinois.  They  would 
take  it  back  to  Montana  and  Colorado. 

If  vast  quantities  of  silver  were  mined  the  people  out 
West  might  accumulate  vast  quantities  of  money.  The 
"silver  bugs"  of  that  section  might  become  as  rich  and 
obnoxious  as  the  "gold  bugs"  of  the  East  Denver  might 
become  a  great  money  center,  but  what  advantage  would 
that  be  to  the  people  of  Alabama  or  Michigan? 

There  is  already  idle  money  by  the  hundreds  of  millions 
in  some  sections  of  the  country,  but  the  people  of  other 
sections  cannot  get  it  because  they  buy  about  as  much 
as  they  sell,  and  have  no  favorable  balance  of  trade  to 
bring  it  to  them. 

If  the  silver  barons  of  the  West  were  multiplied  by  the 
score,  and  if  all  the  followers  of  the  mining  camps  were 
to  grow  rich  and  great,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  the 
farmers  of  Mississippi  or  Ohio  would  be  benefited  any 
more  than  they  are  now  benefited  by  the  vast  accumula- 
tions of  money  stored  in  the  vaults  of  Eastern  banks. 

If  every  tenth  man  in  Colorado  were  made  a  million- 
aire, and  the  fortunes  of  all  were  in  cash,  that  accuniula- 


DOLLARS  "I;   WHAT? 

tiou  of  money  could  no  more  put  up  prices  than  docs  the 
pres.-:it  hoards  in  the  East. 

The  truth  is  that  the  supply  of  money  lias  little  to  do 
with  prices,  which  are  based  on  the  cost  of  production, 
but  regulated  by  supply  and  demand.  They  are  affected 
also  by  the  state  of  credits. 

1'rosperity,  which  stimulates  prices,  depends  upon  safe 
credits  more  than  upon  the  volume  of  money. 

Money  may  IK-  abundant,  and  prosperity  wholly  lack- 
ing'; but  credit  cannot  be  abundant  without  prosperity. 

< 'untidence,  which  is  the  basis  of  credit,  increases  the 
use  and  active  supply  of  money.  It  is  also  a  great  dis- 
tributor of  money,  a  great  equalizer  of  its  circulation. 

The  advocates  of  inflation,  whether  by  free  coinage  of 
silver,  or  other  methods,  destroy  confidence  and  thus  de- 
si  roy  the  only  rational  means  of  securing  what  they  real- 
ly want,  an  active  increase  of  the  volume  of  money  in  the 
nnels  of  trade. 

They  get  hold  of  the  wrong  horn  of  the  dilemma.  They 
propose  an  artificial  and  consequently  unsafe  increase 
in  the  money  supply,  believing  that  they  can  thus  ru- 
<  :-'-ase  the  circulation  and  put  up  prices. 

-The  plan  inevitably  works  the  wrong  way.  Too  many 
distrust  the  scheme. 

The  money  is  locked  up,  nobody  wants  to  invest,  or  to 
buy  beyond  actual  needs,  and  prices  go  down  instead 

ap. 

Then  the  stump  orator  comes  upon  the  scene,  abuses 
the  "gold  bugs,"  and  lays  the  consequences  of  this  folly 
at  the  door  of  the  "money  power." 


Ftec  silver  -would  reduce  by  half  the  value  of  all  pensions, 
'Cliffs,  life  insurance  payments,  bank  deposits,  and  of  her  evidences 
of  credit. 

GOLD  STANDARD  AND  PROSPERITY. 

ee  silver  orators  and  writers  claim  that  we  have  tried 
the  gold  standard  shire  ISTS,  and  that  tilings  have  gradu 
all-.  ufov:n  worse,  and  that  it  is  now  time  to  try  some- 
thing «'ise,  meaning  free  silver.  This  statement  is  untrue 


56  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

in  every  particular.  The  period  from  1878  to  1890  was 
in  all  respects  the  most  prosperous  in  the  history  of  the 
country.  The  increase  in  population,  the  industrial 
growth,  the  influx  of  foreign  capital  and  the  expansion 
of  enterprise  was  not  merely  extraordinary,  it  was  mar- 
velous. It  was  a  development  never  equaled,  or  even  ap- 
proached, in  any  country  in  the  history  of  the  world.  In 
1878  the  West  was  practically  unsettled  and  undevel- 
oped. Since  then  its  broad  acres  have  been  brought  un- 
der cultivation,  and  its  hamlets  have  become  populous 
and  prosperous  cities.  In  1878  the  South  practically  had 
neither  capital  nor  manufacturing  industries.  Its  iron 
and  coal  were  almost  untouched;  its  railroads  were  lack- 
ing in  traffic,  in  bad  repair,  without  substantial  equip- 
ment or  organization,  and  for  eighteen  years  there  had 
been  little  new  construction.  In  those  twelve  years  three 
and  a  half  times  as  many  cotton  mills  were  built  in  the 
South  as  were  built  during  the  previous  one  hundred 
years.  The  increase  of  spindles  was  more  than  350  per 
cent.  More  capital  was  invested  in  mining  and  iron  pro- 
duction, ten  times  over,  than  in  the  previous  history  of 
the  country  since  its  settlement.  The  same  activity  and 
energy  prevailed  in  all  lines  of  industry.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  West  and  Northwest  was  not  less  wonderful. 
Denver,  Kansas  City,  St.  Paul,  Minneapolis,  Detroit  and 
Milwaukee  grew  from  townships  to  big  cities;  the  popu- 
lation of  Chicago  grew  from  a  few  hundred  thousand  to 
a  million  of  inhabitants.  The  North  also  enjoyed  un- 
equaled  prosperity.  In  that  period  our  stock  of  gold  in- 
creased from  $213,000,000  to  f 690,000,000,  a  net  increase 
of  $477.000,000;  our  stock  of  silver  increased  from  $87,- 
000,000'  to  $440,000,000,  a  net  increase  of  $353,000,000. 
Deposits  in  State  and  National  banks  increased  from 
$800,000,000  to  $2,200,000,000,  showing  in  twelve  years 
the  unprecedented  increase  of  nearly  300  per  cent,  in  the 
savings  and  accumulations  of  the  people.  And  in  the 
same  period  the  bonded  debt  of  the  United  States,  about 
which  the  free  silver  men  make  so  much  noise,  was  re- 
duced from  nearly  $1,800,000,000  to  about  $600,000,000, 
a  great  reduction  of  two-thirds  or  say,  about  $1,200,000,- 
000  of  the  interest  bearing  debt  of  the  country.  The 
credit  of  the  nation  was  so  improved  that  the  rate  of  in- 
terest on  government  bonds  was  reduced  from  a  five  per 
cent  to  a  three  per  cent,  basis.  Throughout  the  country, 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT.' 

as  a  whole,  prosperity  reigned,  and  if  the  people  were 
not  satisfied  with  the  condition  it  was  because  content- 
ment is  not  the  lot  of  humanity. 

It  is  certain  that  the  Western  silver  barons  were  dis- 
gruntled through  all  these  years,  the  brightest  in  the  an- 
nals of  any  people,  and  they  were  persistently  and  surely 
undermining  the  confidence  which  made  such  magnificent 
growth  and  prosperity  possible.  Their  movements  were 
watched  with  keen  and  anxious  interest  the  world  over 
by  the  men  of  capital  and  enterprise,  who  had  set  the 
busy  wheels  of  progress  in  motion.  In  1890  they  forced 
the  passage  of  the  Sherman  law,  the  baneful  effect  of 
which  almost  criminal  blunder  is  fully  explained  in  other 
articles  in  this  work,  and  is  known  to  the  whole  world. 
Prosperity  and  progress  were  soon  at  an  end.  The  coun- 
try wras  no  longer  safely  on  a  gold  basis.  Distrust,  un- 
certainty and  stagnation  supplanted  hope,  confidence 
and  activity. 

The  free  silver  people  claim  that  if  the  Sherman  law 
was  the  cause  of  these  misfortunes  that  its  repeal  in  1893 
ought  to  have  removed  them.  Such  argument  is  extreme- 
ly foolish.  It  is  a  fact  well  known  to  the  world  that  the 
"Fifty-third  Congress  was  practically  a  free  silver  body. 
The  failure  of  a  bill  to  sustain  the  faith  and  credit  of  the 
government  was  greeted  with  cheers  from  members  in 
the  lower  house.  It  is  also  loudly  and  vociferously  her- 
alded by  free  silver  advocates  that  the  doctrine  is  spread- 
ing and  taking  deeper  root  in  all  parts  of  the  land.  With 
our  gold  standard  so  vigorously  assailed  since  the  day 
the  Sherman  law  was  repeapled,  and  its  very  existence 
in  such  grave  doubt,  no  well  informed,  well  balanced  man 
would  argue  that  the  country  is,  or  has  been  since  1893, 
in  position  to  further  test  the  merits  of  the  gold  standard. 
But  as  any  candid  man  must  admit,  its  merits  were  fully 
tested  from  1878  to  1890,  and  with  results  that  ania/.<><l 
mankind.  But  in  1890,  as  stated,  its  existence  was  threat- 
ened, and  that  folly  also  amazed  mankind,  excepting  only 
the  advocates  of  free  silver. 


58  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT  ? 


THE  LOSSES  OF  1893. 

It  has  been  claimed  that  the  banks  "combined"  to  raid 
the  Treasury  and  bring  on  the  panic  of  1893.  It  ought 
not  be  necessary  to  combat  this  absurd  contention,  but 
so  many  people  believe  it  to  be  true  that  it  may  not  be 
amiss  to  show  who  sustained  the  losses  of  that  calamity. 

The  New  York  Herald  estimated,  from  actual  market 
quotations,  that  within  a  short  time  the  shrinkage  in  the 
value  of  stocks  and  bonds  listed  on  the  New  York  Stock 
Exchange  was  $700,000,000.  These  stocks  were  largely 
owned  or  held  by  banks  as  collateral  for  loans.  Scores 
of  operators  in  Wall  street  were  beggared.  Nearly  700 
banks  throughout  the  country,  many  of  which  afterward 
became  wholly  insolvent  from  sudden  shrinkage  of  as- 
sets, were  forced  to  close  doors.  Capitalists  and  investors 
suffered  in  proportion.  The  total  losses  directly  and  in- 
directly sustained  by  the  monied  interests  of  the  country 
amounted  to  thousands  of  millions.  Banks  that  did  not 
fail,  lost  heavily,  suffering  in  many  instances  serious  im- 
pairment of  capital.  Deposits  shrunk  from  25  to  75  per 
cent.,  and  banking  for  a  .time,  to  say  nothing  of  losses, 
was  wholly  without  profit;  and  owing  to  general  stagna- 
tion and  uncertainty,  there  has  since  been  no  money  in 
the  business. 

Even  the  free  silver  advocate  does  not  claim  that  the 
bankers  and  capitalists  of  the  country  are  fools.  Yet  this 
is  the  only  conclusion  if  they  really  "combined"  to  bring 
on  that  panic.  Such  losses  surely  follow  all  panics,  and 
nobody  understands  this  so  well  as  the  man  who  handles 
money. 

To  stay  the  general  disaster  at  the  time,  the  New  York 
banks  imperiled  their  own  safety  by  loaning  money  to 
banks  in  every  part  of  the  Union.  I  doubt  whether  there 
would  have  been  a  dozen  banks  witll  open  doors  in  Ten- 
nessee if  aid  from  the  New  York  "gold  bugs"  had  been 
refused,  and  the  ruin  of  business  men  and  borrowers  of 
all  classes  would  have  been  complete.  What  is  said  of 
Tennessee  was  true  in  greater  or  less  degree  of  all  South- 
ern and  Western  states.  The  "gold  bugs"  used  clearing 
house  certificates  at  home,  and  at  great  risk  sent  good 
money  throughout  the  land  in  answer  to  the  general  cry 


DOLLARS,  OK  WHAT?  59 

<>f  distress.  These  fads  are  well  known  to  every  wrell 
posted  man.  The  writer  believes  that  these  bankers  have 
made  some  mistakes  in  policy,  as  all  men  do;  but  what- 
ever  their  errors  of  judgment,  they  have  never  "con- 
spired" against  the  government  or  people,  and  the  free 
silver  sections  of  the  South  and  West  owe  them  a  debt 
of  gratitude  that  must  remain  long  unsettled. 

It  may  be  added  that  the  reason  bank  men,  almost  as 
u  unit,  oppose  free  silver,  is  not  that  they  want  to  "con- 
spire" against  anybody,  but  because  they  so  thoroughly 
understand  the  disaster  that  would  follow.  They  know 
that  its  increased  coinage  under  the  Sherman  act  brought 
the  panic  of  1893.  THiey  do  not  gness  or  think  that  this 
was  the  cause,  but  they  know  that  it  was.  And  they  do 
not  want  any  more  silver  panics,  particularly  not  a  free 
silver  panic,  which  they  also  know  would  be  the  worst 
of  all.  They  know  that  they  could  not  stand  the  conse- 
quent losses,  and  they  know  that  the  people  could  not 
stand  them.  The  only  selfish  motive  they  have  in  trying 
to  maintain  the  present  gold  standard  is  to  restore  pros- 
perity to  the  country,  and  consequently  to  restore  their 
former  earnings  and  profits.  This  is  a  kind  of  selfishness 
common  to  all  men. 

This  article  is  not  intended  in  any  sense  as  a  vindica- 
tion of  hankers  and  monied  men,  but  merely  to  remove 
mistaken  notions  which  are  in  the  way  of  sound  money 
legislation. 

Men  send  for  a  doctor  when  they  are  sick,  a  lawyer 
when  they  want  legal  redress,  a  preacher  when  they  want 
spiritual  comfort,  a  plumber  when  the  water  pipe  bursts; 
they  go  to  an  architect  when  they  want  to  build  a  house, 
si -iid  the  horse  to  the  blacksmith  when  they  want  him 
shod,  engage  a  gardener  to  turn  the  ground  and  plant 
seed,  and  hire  a  rail  splitter  when  the  farm  needs  fencing; 
ir.it  when  finances  get  out  of  joint,  they  abuse  and  turn  a 
deaf  ear  to  the  men  who  handle  the  money  and  know 
most  about  it.  There  is  a  flaw  somewhere  in  this  general 
way  of  doing  things.  It  might  be  well  for  awhile  as  an 
experiment  to  have  the  lawyers  shoe  the  horses  and  the 
rail  splitters  dose  ihe  sick.  If  the  shoes  pinched  and  the 
{•atients  languished,  these  things  would  be  in  keeping 
with  the  clumsy  tinkering  and  patching  by  novices  of  the 
nation's  finances. 


60  DOLLARS,  OK  WHAT  ? 


THE  MONEY  POWER. 

Suppose,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  we  admit  the  false 
notion  that  the  "money  power"  is  unreasonably  preju- 
diced against  silver.  Is  a  remedy  possible  if  applied  only 
in  the  United  States?  And  how  can  any  legal  remedy 
be  applied?  Money  cannot  be  legislated  out  of  bank 
vaults  at  home  and  abroad,  and  out  of  the  pockets  of  the 
people,  and  put  into  circulation  in  the  United  States.  We 
are  not  necessarily  a  borrowing  people,  and  whether  that 
policy  be  right  or  wrong  we  are  not  in  condition,  nor  in 
position,  to  put  a  stop  to  borrowing.  We  must  have  for- 
eign money,  and  also  the  use  of  home  accumulations,  to 
carry  our  obligations  and  to  develop  our  resources.  But 
can  we  pass  laws  to  make  Englishmen  send  over  money 
to  build  our  railroads;  to  make  home  capitalists  build 
and  operate  furnaces,  mills,  open  mines  and  buy  our  sur- 
plus lands,  and  to  make  lenders  discount  our  notes  and 
accept  our  bills? 

When  we  agitate  and  approach  free  coinage  all  these 
people  lock  their  money  up.  Home  money  lenders  are 
alarmed  and  foreign  capitalists  look  upon  us  with  con- 
tempt. Industrial  progress  comes  to  a  standstill.  We 
may  fuss  and  fume  and  beat  the  air  all  we  are  a  mind  to, 
but  our  impotent  fury  merely  closes  the  money  chests 
tighter.  The  people  we  rail  at  are  not  merely  the  Roths- 
childs, a  few  great  financial  concerns  in  England,  and  a 
few  thousand  bankers  in  America.  That  vague,  greatly 
abused  and  little  understood  thing,  the  "money  power," 
is  a  mightier  force  than  even  the  populists  claim  that  it 
is.  It  is  the  PEOPLE — the  millions  of  intelligent,  thrifty 
and  prudent  people  who  have  put  aside  the  accumula- 
tions of  their  industry.  Every  man  who  has  saved  and 
owns  money,  whether  the  sum  be  f  100  or  f  100,000,  or  who 
holds  the  notes  of  his  neighbor,  who  is  a  depositor  in  a 
savings  bank,  or  who  is  an  investor  in  securities,  state 
bonds  or  mortgages,  is  one  of  the  "money  power."  If  his 
hoard  be  only  f  100  he  is  as  easily  frightened  and  runs  to 
cover  as  quickly  as  the  man  with  a  million.  He  is,  indeed, 
more  apt  to  lock  his  money  up  and  put  it  entirely  out  of 
sight  and  out  of  reach  than  the  larger  and  broader  holder. 
If  you  have  anything  to  sell,  you  cannot  sell  it  to  him. 


DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT?  61 

Price  counts  for  nothing.  If  you  ask  lii-m  to  join  you  in 
an  enterprise,  he  laughs  at  you.  If  you  would  borrow  of 
him,  he  shies  at  your  collateral.  He  may  not  be  learned 
in  the  science  of  money.  He  may  tell  you  that  he  knows 
nothing  about  the  financial  question,  but  he  knows  how 
to  make  you  pay  if  you  owe  him ;  and  if  you  scare  him, 
lie  knows  how  to  lock  up  his  money  and  keep  it. 

He  may  be  a  populist  or  a  free  silver  advocate — many 
of  these  I  have  observed  grip  the  purse  strings  tightest, 
and  they  generally  grab  for  gold  when  they  put  money 
into  holes  or  stockings — but  whatever  he  be,  he  is  one  of 
that  mighty  army  composing  the  "money  power."  There 
are  some  six  or  eight  millions  of  them.  They  fill  every 
vocation  and  avenue  of  life.  They  are  lawyers,  doctors, 
artisans,  merchants,  laborers,  farmers,  preachers,  beg- 
gars, guardians,  trustees,  executors,  capitalists,  men  and 
women,  old  and  young.  They  own  the  stocks  of  the  sav- 
ings banks,  the  national  banks,  trust  companies  and  other 
corporations;  own  the  money  deposits;  and  the  offi< -ers 
of  these  institutions  are  merely  the  paid  instmments 
used  by  them.  If  they  heap  money  upon  bank  counters, 
these  custodians  of  their  earnings  must  use  great  care 
and  discretion  in  the  keeping  and  disposition  of  their 
~funds.  If  they  want  the  money  they  have  committed  to 
the  care  of  the  banks,  whether  to  invest  or  to  hoard,  it 
must  always  be  ready  for  them.  The  banker  is  branded 
with  incompetency  and  disgrace,  or  with  dereliction  of 
duty  and  sent  to  prison,  if  he  cannot  pay.  This  is  the 
"money  power"  that  cornered  money  and  brought  on 
the  money  panic  of  1893.  Whatever  may  be  the  pre< -ipi- 
tating  cause,  it  is  the  "power"  that  brings  on  all  finan- 
cial disturbances.  It  is  the  "power"  which  now  dis- 
trusts the  financial  policy  of  the  United  States.  It  is  the 
"power"  which  believes  there  is  more  silver  in  the  mines 
of  the  world  than  can  be  safely  used  as  money  by  the 
United  States  without  driving  out  its  better  money- 
gold — and  which  fears  great  disaster  from  further  silver 
legislation.  It  is  a  "power"  which  cannot  be  driven  nor 
legislated  into  buying  and  selling,  lending,  building  and 
developing.  It  will  stand  stock  still  till  it  gets  ready 
to  move.  Railery,  threats  and  denunciation  do  not  budge 
it.  It  is  the  power  of  human  avarice  and  self-preserva- 
tion. Show  it  gain,  confidence,  stability,  and  it  welcomes 
you.  Threaten  it  with  free  coinage  of  silver  and  depre- 


62  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT? 

elated  money  and  it  draws  away  in  alarm,  yet  grim  and 
resolute. 

Since  this  almighty  "money  power"  is  afraid  of  free 
silver,  and  will  again  and  indefinitely  arrest  every  in- 
dustry and  enterprise  in  the  country  if  that  heresy  be 
threatened  or  instituted,  what  folly  and  madness  to  fly 
in  the  face  of  it! 

We  want  prosperity,  and  we  cannot  have  it  unless  we 
fully  satisfy  the  people  who  have  money  to  invest, 
whether  in  small  or  large  sums. 

The  free  silver  people  do  not  look  at  the  practical  con- 
dition and  situation  of  things.  They»have  a  theory,  and 
reason  in  the  abstract.  They  block  progress  and  distress 
the  country  exploiting  that  theory.  They  would  with- 
draw the  corner  stone  of  thousands  of  millions  of  credits 
and  topple  the  whole  financial  and  commercial  structure 
experimenting  with  that  theory.  Practical  men  know 
that  it  is  a  mere  theory,  vicious  and  dangerous.  It  is  a 
catching  theory,  because  with  it  is  coupled  abuse  of  the 
"money  power,"  which  so  many  voters  fail  utterly  to 
comprehend.  The  voter  himself  may  be  an  important 
factor  in  the  "money  power,"  yet  unable  to  understand 
it — be  filled  with  prejudice  and  resentment  against  it. 
Any  of  us  who  are  industrious  and  thrifty,  and  who  have 
saved  money,  are  part  of  that  much  abused  and  really 
potential  "power." 

Will  a  large  per  cent  of  the  voters  of  the  country  con- 
tinue to  blindly  follow  these  free  coinage  theorists,  or 
have  they  had  enough  of  them  and  of  the  disasters  that 
follow  in  their  wake? 

If  we  want  to  start  our  mills  and  give  life  to  our  enter- 
prises, they  furnish  us  no  money  with  which  to  do  these 
things.  The  worst  and  loudest  of  them  merely  want  our 
votes  and  the  fat  offices  we  can  give  them.  It  is  to  the 
"money  power"  we  must  look  for  the  means  of  paying 
our  labor  and  handling  our  products.  If  we  want  to  sell 
a  farm,  a  horse,  a  crop  of  wheat,  a  bale  of  cotton,  a  town 
lot,  we  never  think  of  the  free  coinage  orator,  but  go  to 
some  person  who  belongs  to  the  "money  power"  and 
strike  him  for  a  trade.  Let  us  make  friends  with  these 
people,  and  cast  out  utterly  the  theorists  and  designing 
demagogues,  who  would  destroy  us,  professing  (for  our 
votes)  to  love  us,  and  to  be  infinitely  concerned  for  us. 


DOLLARS.  OK   WHAT?  153 

"PRIVILEGES "OF  NATIONAL  BANKS. 

National  Banks  have  no  "privileges,"  in  the  sense  that 
they  are  a  favored  class  of  institutions.  During,  and  for 
a  time  subsequent  to  the  war  period,  when  government 
bonds  were  low  priced,  and  bore  high  rates  of  interest, 
there  was  a  good  profit  In  National  bank  note  circula- 
tion, but  that  day  has  passed;  and  there  is  now  a  well 
defined  loss  to  the  National  banks  in  the  exercise  of  their 
"privileges."  This  has  been  the  case  for  a  good  many 
years. 

To  issue  $45,000  circulation  now,  a  bank  must  invest 
$57,000  of  its  capital  in  United  States  bonds,  to  be  de- 
posited with  the  United  States  Treasury  to  secure  its 
circulation.  This  estimate  is  based  on  four  per  cent, 
bonds  at  1.14,  about  an  average  price  for  eighteen 
months. 

The  bank  must  then  deposit  $2,250  with  the  Treasurer 
to  the  credit  of  a  fund  known  as  the  five  per  cent,  redemp- 
tion fund,  leaving  it  the  use  of  $42,750  on  an  investment 
of  $57,000.  Therefore  it  loses  entirely  the  use  of  $14,250 
of  its  capital.  Money  is  worth  eight  per  cent,  throughout 
the  South  and  West,  and  in  other  localities.  Counting 
interest  at  eight  per  cent  the  loss  on  this  item  annually 
is  $1,140. 

The  four  per  cent,  bonds  mature  in  1907 — twelve  years 
hence.  At  maturity  the  face  value  only  will  be  paid. 
Therefore  in  twelve  years  the  bank  loses  $7,000  premium 
it  paid  for  the  bonds.  The  annual  loss  on  this  item  is 
$583. 

There  is  a  tax  of  one  per  cent,  on  the  circulation.  The 
loss  on  this  account  is  annually  $450. 

These  three  items  constitute  the  principal  cost  of  the 
National  banking  "privileges." 

There  is  but  one  item  of  profit,  which  is  the  interest 
on  the  bonds.  This  for  twelve  months  is  $2,000. 

Therefore,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  the  account  stands 
as  follows: 

Interest  on  the  S14.2"*)  iu>in Sl.l  In 

Annual  loss  on  the  $7,000  premium  item 

Tax  on  circulation -Ion 

Total  loss Sl',173 

Less  Interest  «n  $50,000  bonds 2,000 

Net  loss  to  hank 17:1 


64  DOLLARS,  OR  WHAT  ? 

Counting  the  $14,250  item  on  a  basis  of  six  per  cent., 
there  would  be  an  apparent  profit  of  $112;  but  it  would 
be  apparent  only.  Other  items  of  expense  incident  to 
the  system  would  much  more  than  wipe  it  out.  But  I 
base  the  estimate  on  eight  per  cent,  as  it  is  in  the  East 
only  and  in  the  money  centers  that  lower  rates  prevail. 

Other  items  of  cost  are  National  bank  examiners'  fees, 
$50  per  year,  if  two  examinations  are  made;  the  adver- 
tising of  five  annual  statements;  the  exchange  and  ex- 
press charges  in  keeping  intact  the  $2,250  redemption 
fund,  and  in  transportation' of  new  issues  of  notes;  loss 
in  circulation  while  new  notes  are  in  process  of  substitu- 
tion for  old,  or  mutilated  notes;  attention  and  labor  in 
making  various  reports,  and  other  items  of  direct  or  in- 
direct cost  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  "privilege"  costs  a 
National  bank,  issuing  $45,000  currency,  directly,  not 
less  than  $350  per  annum. 

If  the  bank  has  a  large  line  of  deposits  the  cost  is  muca 
more,  owing  to  increased  work  in  making  examinations 
and  reports 

In  reserve  cities  banks  are  also  required  to  carry 
twenty-five  per  cent  reserve,  their  own  notes,  and  other 
specified  moneys  and  sight  exchange  not  counting  as 
part  of  this  reserve.  The  class  of  assets  they  carry  and 
the  kind  of  paper  they  discount  is  also  prescribed  by  law 
or  regulation. 

A  State  bank,  with  equal  capital  and  deposits,  can 
make  more  money  than  a  National  bank.  As  at  present 
constituted,  the  National  banking  system  is  a  decaying 
system,  and  no  new  National  banks  would  be  organized 
but  for  the  reason  that  the  people  trust  them  more  than 
they  do  State  banks,  and  the  more  readily  patronize 
them.  And  this  is  an  anomaly,  considering  the  general 
prejudice  against  them. 

It  is  readily  seen  that  it  is  a  mistaken  prejudice.  It 
is  one  that  would  soon  disappear  if  the  facts  were  known. 
As  recently  stated  by  the  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce 
and  Commercial  Bulletin,  this  prejudice  has  much  to  do 
with  the  free  silver  sentiment  of  the  South  and  other 
sections,  and  if  pains  were  taken  by  the  press  to  publish 
the  simple  facts,  and  make  them  generally  understood, 
the  most  serious  difficulty  in  the  way  of  a  simple  and 
proper  revision  of  our  currency  system  would  be  removed. 


>ress  Comments. 


"I  regard  it  as  an  unusually  clear  and  forcible  exposure  of  the  errors  of 
the  silverites." — Editor  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce  and  Commercial  Bulletin. 

"You  tell  the  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth  about  the  currency  question 
in  a  way  that  is  informing,  interesting  and  convincing."  /  '/er  to 

Author)  from  Francis  B.  Loomis,  Editor-in-Chief  Cincinnati  Tribune. 

"The  most  comprehensive   and  best  condensed   exposition  of  the  general^ 
topic  of  sound  currency  that  has  come  under  our  notice  since  the  disci i 
began  two  years  ago." — Chattanooga  '1 

"  One  of  the  best  exposes  of  the  free  silver  craze  we  have  seen  from  any 
quarter." — Chicago  Tribune. 

"Dollars,  or  What?  presents  fairly  and  cogently  some  important  points  on 
the  money  question  which  the  friends  of  silver  should  carefully  consider.  We 
bespeak  it  a  general  reading." — Springfield  (Mam.)  Republican. 

What  is  needed  now  is  a  simple,  straight  forward  and  temperate  presenta- 
tion of  the  case  against  the  free  coinage  fallacy.  "  Dollars,  or  What,"  will  do 
good. — Louisville  Courier- Journal. 

I  have  found  nothing  that  I  consider  as  clear  cut,  and  to  the  point,  and  so 
easily  understood  as  your  little  hook,  Dollars,  or  What.  I  have  named  it  the 
"A.  i'>.  C.  of  Sound  Money." — Charles  E.  Waters,  Secretary  Nebraska  Bankers  Asso- 
ciation. 

"The  author  of  Dollars,  or  What,  has  rendered  a  patriotic  service  in  pre- 
paring a  work  which  states  the  case  so  plainly  that  it  can  be  generally  under- 
stood. >  *  It  *  *  should  be  in  hands  of  every  voter."—  J.  C.  1, 

hill,  Editor  Charleston  News  and  Co'/ritr. 

"  We  expect  to  use  a  great  deal  of  its  contents  as  clippings  for  the  A>' 
tiser.     It  should  be  on  the  desk  of  every  sound  money  newspaper  man  in  the 

'  •<  11 1  nt ry." — Montgomery  *  idiwtiser. 

"  The  writer  is  forcible  without  being  offensive  and  his  book  must  do  good 
in  whatever  part  of  the  country  it  shall  circulate." — Philadelphia  Record. 

"  The  best  presentation  of  the  subject  in  popular  form  that  we  have  re- 
i." — The  (Lexington,  Ky.)  Press- Transcript. 

"A  cursory  reading  makes  it  appear  the  finest  exposition  of  the  true  finan- 
cial theory  yet  made." — Dallas  (  .  ••«- Herald. 

"It  is  first-class  from  start  to  finish.  It  will  attract  the  attention  of  the 
whole  country  and  will  prove  a  wonderful  seller." — The  ( 

"Where  '  Dollars,  or  What,'  follows  the  track  of  'Coin  '  we  guarantee'  that 
it  will  close  the  Financial  School." — The  Sun,  Columbus,  Go. 

"'Dollars,  or  What/  should  be  read  by  every  voter  in  the  United 

States."—  lova  State  Register. 

"There  is  no  doubt  of  there  being  a  great  popular  demand  for  the  work." 
— Kansas  City  Mail. 

"The  best  work  yet  written  on  the  financial  question." — Paris  (Texas) 
Daily  News. 


Press  Comments. 


"Dollars,  or  What,  contains  the  soundest  and  most  candid  presentation  of 
the  financial  question  that  we  have  yet  seen,  and  it  is  sure  to  be  a  salutary 
antidote  to  the  poisonous  stuff  put  forth  in  'Coin's  Financial  School,'  and  sim- 
ilar publications.  *  *  *  It  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  every  voter." 
— Rhodes'  Journal  of  Banking,  N.  Y. 

"  'Dollars,  or  What,'  not  only  answers  'Coin,'  but  completely  annihilates 
the  very  basis  of  'Coin's'  argument." — Sioux  Oil;/  (Iowa)  Tribune. 

"It  meets  Harvey  effectually— in  a  direct,  simple  way,  which  anybody  can 
understand." — Hartford  (Conn.)  Times. 

"Mr.  Mitchell  is  a  biraetallist  of  rare  financial  and  literary  ability." — 
Bonfort's  Wine  and  Spirit  Circular,  N.  Y. 

"The  book  is  undoubtedly  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  literature  of  the 
currency  question." — The  (Chicago)  Israelite. 

"A  brief  and  practical  statement  of  the  effect  of  unlimited  coinage." — 

Atlanta  (Go.)  Journal. 

"Its  language  is  simple,  plain  and  temperate,  its  arguments  clear  and  con- 
cise, and  its  exposure  of  some  of  the  financial  fallacies  of  the  day  complete." 
— Farm  and  Fireside,  Springfield,  Ohio. 

"A  strong  and  very  readable  argument  against  the  free  coinage  of  silver." 
— Philadelphia  News. 

"Dollars,  or  What,  takes  all  the  wind  out  of  'Coin's  Financial  School.' " — 
New  York  Mail  and  Express. 

"A  valuable  contribution  to  the  currency  controversy." — Rochester  (N.  Y.) 
Herald. 

The  Argus,  Portland,  Me.,  referring  to  extracts  from  Dollars,  or  What, 
says:  "They  are  readable ;  they  are  exact;  they  are  as  full  of  meat  as  an  egg." 

"Dollars,  or  What,  most  clearly  sets  forth  the  whole  system  of  finance." — 
Chattanooga  Press. 

"Mr.  Mitchell  is  an  interesting  writer,  and  though  his  views  are  entirely 
opposed  to  those  of  the  majority  of  the  people  of  the  South,  his  treatment  of 
the  question  bespeaks  his  ability." — Atlanta  Constitution. 

"A  forcible  exposure  of  the  errors  of  the  eilverites." — The  Herald,  Utica, 
N.  Y. 

"Mr.  W.  B.  Mitchell  *  *  has  taken  time  to  give  a  set  of  clear,  forceful 
arguments  in  behalf  of  sound  money,  that  can  be  *  *  *  easily  under- 
stood."— Daily  Stale  Gazette,  Trenton,  N.  J. 

"Written  in  an  easy,  attractive  style  that  will  make  it  popular  with  the 
people." — The  Financier,  N.  Y. 

"This  little  book  is  bound  to  be  of  great  service  to  the  cause  of  sound 

money." — Financial  Index,  Atlanta,  Oa. 


